In 1957 she became the first foreigner selected to participate in Utakai Hajime, the Imperial New Year's Poetry Reading of Japan.
[2] Nixon performed a 31 syllable waka about the Hōryū-ji, a Buddhist temple she had visited on a trip two years earlier.
After her reading, she won the praises of Emperor Hirohito, who encouraged her to continue writing Japanese poetry so she could become a "bridge" between Japan and the United States.
An elementary school in Palo Alto currently bears her name.
This biographical article about an American poet born between 1900-1909 is a stub.