Kitahara Hakushu who was born to an old family running a seafood wholesale store, a purveyor to the Yanagawa domain for generations,lived in the Periods of Meiji, Taisho and Showa, leaving his great footmarks on Japan's modern literature as a poet. When he was sixteen, his house was burned down by a big fire. It is said that Hakushu, being in deep grief, was absorbed in writing poems and lyrics. As early as university days, he was known to poetical circles. And he said,"Yanagawa, the city of water, is the mother of my poems and lyrics." He kept loving Yanagawa until he died at the age of fifty-seven, and left a large number of fine poems. He was born and brought up in Okinohata, Yanagawa. And he loved his hometown so much that a lot of scenes of Yanagawa can be seen in his writings such as "Omoide (Memories)" and "Mizu-no-kohzu (The Composition of Water)".