The poets range from the Imperial Family and nobles to middle ranked and lower ranked court officials, and the anonymous poems are considered to have been written by lower ranked court officials and commoners in the Kinai (Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara) area, and it is apparent from the volumes entitled Azumauta and Sakimori no uta that an increasing number of commoners began to wrote poems.
歌の作者層を見てみると、皇族や貴族から中・下級官人などに波及していき、作者不明の歌は畿内の下級官人や庶民の歌と見られ、また東歌や防人歌などに見られるように庶民にまで広がっていったことが分かる。