Natsume Sōseki wrote many poems in Classical Chinese (kanshi) during his career.
He began writing Chinese in school, and continued throughout his life, but became especially prolific just before his death.
His kanshi are well-regarded critically – in fact considered the best of the Meiji period – but are not as popular as his novels.
[3] Literary critic and historian Donald Keene called him "[probably] [t]he best kanshi poet of the Meiji era".
[4] He also noted that while Sōseki's kanshi are not as popular in contemporary Japan as his novels, this probably has more to do with the orientation of Japanese society since Sōseki's death in 1916 than with the actual literary value of the poems and novels in relation to each other.