Tateo Fukutomi was born in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan in 1936.

He began to compose haiku in 1963, studying under Tohta Kaneko. 

He was a farm trainee in California, USA, for one year (1965-1966). He studied American Culture under Taro Yashima (illustrator of children's books) in Los Angeles at that time.

Currently he is a lecturer on haiku at NHK Miyazaki Culture Center.

He is a member of the Modern Haiku Association and the Japan Agricultural Exchange Council.

Publications include collections of original haiku: Straw Hat (1979), Kappa, River Sprite (1989), The Sound of Waves (1997), Straw Hat: English edition (2000), as well as the essays: Trial and Error in a Foreign Land (1974), and Kappa's Notebook (1985).

Haiku Notes: *Kawabata, winning a Novel Prize had said "Japan, the Beautiful, and Myself ". And also Ooe, getting the same prize said "Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself ". I was born in 1936 in Japan and I am of the same generation as Ooe. During the Second World War, I received ,u primary education in school. I am an ambiguous Japanese also. Am I a red crab?