Kazuko To (1929-2013) is a poet who lived most of her life in the Japanese National Sanatorium Oshima Seisho-en. She was admitted at the age of twelve and spent the following 70 years there.
While living at Oshima, To wrote more than 1000 poems and published 19 volumes of collected poems. A poem titled “Mune no Izumi ni” (In the fountain of my heart) ends,
Ah, even if there are hundreds of millions of people
They are all strangers
They would not drop even one withered leaf
In the fountain of my heart.
To was awarded the Takami Jun prize, one of the highest awards for poetry in Japan. Her name Kazuko To was an alias. It was only after her death that her brother decided to bring her ashes back to their family tomb under her real name, Yasuko Izuchi.