Kinouchi Yoji (1940-2005), a poet and member of the Otaru Literature Museum Establishment Promotion Committee, was born in Hanazono-cho, Otaru City. He graduated from Hanazono Elementary School, Seien Junior High School, and Ryokuryo High School, Business Department, before entering the Faculty of Letters at Meiji University in 1958. He dropped out in 1962 and returned to Otaru to work at the Jinnai Rozan Photography Studio. After joining the Literature Museum Establishment Promotion Committee, he worked as a researcher at the museum from 1978 to 2002, but retired due to illness. He passed away in 2005.

Twenty years after his death, we trace the footsteps of a poet who put down roots in Otaru and supported its culture. His side as a poet who studied under Inagaki Taruho and Shibusawa Tatsuhiko and left behind collections of poetry and paintings; his side as a talkative person who would appear at drinking parties and talk till the night away, as a friend of Ichihara Arinori and Hagiwara Mitsugu; his side as an advisor to the Northern Dance School and jazz enthusiasts thanks to his vast knowledge and wide circle of friends; and his side as he laid the foundations for research and exhibitions from the preparation period for the founding of the Literature Museum.

Additionally, we will look at the Otaru cultural scene around 1980, when avant-garde dance and art, mainly among young people, was flourishing, through the words of Kinouchi, who was actively involved in the scene as an advisor and critic.