Fumiko Nakajo's short life (1922-54) was both illustrated and illuminated by the tanka that she began writing after she developed the cancer that eventually killed her. She distilled all of her thoughts and feelings into this traditional Japanese poetic form (verse patterns of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables), which, as Makoto Ueda tells us in his preface, gave her a freedom of expression within restricted verse form that was analogous to the kind of freedom she maintained within the narrow bounds of an incurable disease.
From this came two tanka collections: "Chibusa Soshitsu (The Loss of Breasts)," published just before her death, and "Hana no Genkei (A Prototype of Flowers)," published posthumously. Though these do not comprise all the poems that she wrote, they do indicate the strength of her work and the reasons for her popularity.