 Horiguchi attended the Literature Department of Keio University, but never graduated (which is rather ironic, since his given name "Daigaku" is written with the same "kanji" as "university", and came from the fact that his father was still a student at Tokyo Imperial University when he was born).Even prior to entering the university, he was a member of the "Shinshisha" (The New Poetry Society) and contributing tanka poetry to "Subaru" ("Pleiades") and other literary magazines, such as Mita Bungaku.Under the encouragement of Tekkan Yosano and his wife Akiko Yosano he also began to write other types of verse.