After coming to the attention of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba (1180–1239; r. 1183–1198),[7] Teika began his long and distinguished career, spanning multiple areas of aesthetic endeavor.

His branch of the clan sought prestige and power in the court by aligning itself with the Mikohidari family, and by specializing in artistic endeavors, principally poetry.

His father was Fujiwara no Shunzei (1114–1204), a well known and greatly respected poet (and judge of poetry competitions), who had compiled the seventh Imperial anthology of waka (the Senzai Wakashū).

[9] Teika's goals as the senior male of his branch were to inherit and cement his father's position in poetry, and to advance his own reputation (thereby also improving the political fortunes of his own clan in the court).

While his life was marked by repeated illness[10] and wildly shifting fortunes – only partially moderated by his father's long-lasting influence in court (Shunzei would live to the advanced age of 90), the young and poetically inclined Retired Emperor Go-Toba's patronage lead to some of Teika's greatest successes.

Immediately after his abdication, he had announced that he would hold two poetry contests, each requiring a number of preeminent poets to compose some 100 waka in a particular thematic progression, known as the hyakushu genre of poem sequences.

Teika expressed his disappointment through poetry, such as this example, written when he was "passed over for promotion in the spring list" in 1187 (he would eventually be promoted in 1190, but as his good and encouraging friend Saigyō died that year, it was cold comfort): toshi furedo kokoro no haru wa yoso nagara nagamenarenuru akebono no sora Another year gone by And still no spring warms my heart, It's nothing to me But now I am accustomed To stare at the sky at dawn.

[22]Teika's appeals to the unrelenting Michichika failed,[12] and so Shunzei stepped in with an eloquent letter (the well-known Waji sojo; "Appeal in Japanese" – writing in Japanese as opposed to the official Chinese was considered a mark of sincerity[12]) addressed to Go-Toba, arguing that such an exclusion was without precedent, and motivated by base jealousy on their opponent's part: Of late the people who call themselves poets have all been mediocrities.

[23][24] He allowed Teika, along with two other "young" poets, Fujiwara no Ietaka (1159–1237; 1158–1237, according to Brower[25]), adopted son of Jakuren and pupil to Shunzei,[26] and Takafusa (1148–1209)[25] to enter the contest.

Teika was overjoyed at this turn of events: Early this morning came a message from Lord Kintsune that last evening the Ex-Emperor ordered my inclusion among the participants for the hundred-poem sequences.....To have been added to the list for this occasion fills me with inexpressible joy.

[27]Teika furiously worked for more than two weeks[28] to complete the full sequence, and when he finally turned his Shoji hyakushu in a day late, Go-Toba was so eager he read the poems immediately.

Go-Toba's personal secretary, Minamoto Ienaga, kept a diary (the Minamoto Ienaga nikki) which eulogistically concerned itself with Go-Toba's poetic activities,[29] and he records that it was Teika's hundred-poem sequence, and more specifically, poem number 93 which was directly responsible for Teika's being granted the special permission necessary to be admitted to the Retired Emperor's court (distinct from the reigning emperor's court; this special admittance was crucial to any future patronage); this is scarcely surprising as the 100-poem sequences submitted were of uniformly high quality (more poems originating in the sequences Go-Toba commissioned were included in the Shin Kokinshū than from any other source except the enormous "Poetry Contest in 1,500 Rounds").

"[28] Ashitazu no Kumoji mayoishi Toshi kurete Kasumi o sae ya Hedatehatsubeki Now that the year Has closed in which it lost its way Upon the cloudland path, Must the crane still be kept apart Even from the haze of a new spring?

This favorable patronage and collaboration eventually soured even as Teika's relation with Emperor Juntoku and Minamoto no Sanetomo deepened, over many things such as differences in how one should use "association and progression" (as Brower terms it) in poetic sequences.

In 1207, Go-Toba decided to organize the creation of 46 landscape screens for the Saishō Shitennō Temple which he had built in 1205 (apparently "in order to enlist divine aid in the overthrow the feudal government").

The headnote to the two poems reads: Having been summoned to the palace for a poetry gathering on the thirteenth day of the second month in the second year of Shokyu [1220], I had begged to be excused because of a ritual defilement, it being the anniversary of my mother's death.

[56] Possibly another a factor in this estrangement was politics – Teika had had the good fortune of being selected in 1209 as a poetry teacher to the new and young shōgun, Minamoto no Sanetomo; the Shogunate was a rival and superior authority to that of the Emperors and the Imperial court.

It was probably to the unhappy Sanetomo that Teika addressed the prefatory essay to his didactic collection, Kindai shūka ("Superior Poems of Our Time"), and his treatise on poetry Maigetsusho ("Monthly Notes").

[58] She and others also criticized it for apparently deliberately excluding any of the objectively excellent poems produced by the three Retired Emperors exiled in the aftermath of the Jōkyū War[58] This absence has been variously attributed to vengefulness on the part of Teika, or simply a desire to not potentially offend the Kamakura shogunate.

[60] But even Teika's improved fortunes could not insulate him entirely from the various famines and disasters that wracked the country in this period, and which greatly exacberated his illnesses: Today I had my servants dig up the garden (the north one), and plant wheat there.

One of his 27 children by various women[63] (and one of two legitimate sons), Fujiwara no Tameie (1198–1275; he is remembered as a reluctant heir, in youth inclining rather to court football at the encouragement of Go-Toba[53] than to poetry), would carry on Teika's poetic legacy.

Teika researched old documents and recovered the earlier system of deciding between interpretations of kana, and developed a systematic orthography which was used until the modern Meiji period.

Then, suddenly and spontaneously, from among all the lines one is composing, may emerge a poem whose treatment of the topic is different from the common run, a verse that is somehow superior to the rest.

An excellent example (and one later chosen for an Imperial anthology) is the first poem below: 駒とめて 袖うちはらふ かげもなし 佐野のわたりの 雪の夕暮 Koma tomete Sode uchiharau Kage mo nashi Sano no watari no Yuki no yūgure.

There is no shelter where I can rest my weary horse, and brush my laden sleeves: the Sano Ford and its fields spread over with twilight in the snow.

[74] こぬ人を まつほの浦の 夕なぎに 焼くやもしほの 身もこがれつつ Konu hito o Matsuho no ura no Yunagi ni Yaku ya moshio no Mi mo kogare tsutsu.

しかばかり 契りし中も かはりける 此世に人を たのみけるかな Shika bakari Chigirishi naka mo Kawarikeru Kono yo ni hito o Tanomikeru kana.

In all of these he was second to none, so that people wondered when and how he had gained such proficiency....For his part, the ex-sovereign showed an interest in every accomplishment, even those which seemed of the most trivial and insignificant kind, so that all sorts of people who had any claim to knowledge of these matters were summoned to his presence, where, it appears, they could petition freely for his favor.Again, because his own poem on 'The Grove of Ikuta' was not included among the winning poems for the sliding partitions with paintings of famous beauty spots at my Chapel of the Four Deva Kings [in the Saishō Shitennō Temple], he went about giving vent to his scorn and contempt in various quarters, making many intemperate remarks – a kind of behavior that served rather to demonstrate his own willfulness and lack of restrain than the poor taste of the judges....Although Lord Teika's poetic manner is employed by him with splendid results, it should not, as a general rule, be taken as a model by others....And after all, it does appear superior to Jien's poem on 'The Grove of Ikuta' that was chosen for the painting.

One mistake surely should not be held against a person forever.When Lord Tameie died, his wife, Lady Abutsu the Nun, took the poetic documents with her to Kamakura.

At that time they surrendered all the writings that had been catalogued long ago and were well known to various people, but apparently because not even Lord Tameuji had any clear idea of the contents of the Cormorant and Heron boxes, they retained the secret writings, filled the boxes with forgeries, and handed those over instead.A second account comes from a priest named "Genshō" (flourished c. 1300), who was Tameuji's younger brother and thus supported the Nijō, in his Waka Kuden or Gukanshō ("Oral Traditions of Poetry"; from "NKGT, IV, 46"): The Nun Abutsu and the Great Counselor [Tameuji] quarreled over the poetic documents... Abutsu hid the catalog of poetic writings written in the former Middle Counselor's [Tameie] own hand, and held back a number of important documents which she proceeded to display to all and sundry.