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Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death by [Yoel Hoffmann]

Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death Kindle Edition

by Yoel Hoffmann (Author, Introduction) Format: Kindle Edition

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"A wonderful introduction the Japanese tradition of jisei, this volume is crammed with exquisite, spontaneous verse and pithy, often hilarious, descriptions of the eccentric and committed monastics who wrote the poems." --Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

Although the consciousness of death is, in most cultures, very much a part of life, this is perhaps nowhere more true than in Japan, where the approach of death has given rise to a centuries-old tradition of writing jisei, or the "death poem." Such a poem is often written in the very last moments of the poet's life.

Hundreds of Japanese death poems, many with a commentary describing the circumstances of the poet's death, have been translated into English here, the vast majority of them for the first time. Yoel Hoffmann explores the attitudes and customs surrounding death in historical and present-day Japan and gives examples of how these have been reflected in the nation's literature in general. The development of writing jisei is then examined--from the longing poems of the early nobility and the more "masculine" verses of the samurai to the satirical death poems of later centuries.

Zen Buddhist ideas about death are also described as a preface to the collection of Chinese death poems by Zen monks that are also included. Finally, the last section contains three hundred twenty haiku, some of which have never been assembled before, in English translation and romanized in Japanese.

Print length

354 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Tuttle Publishing
Publication date

April 15, 1998
File size

18427 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"There is something so otherworldly and beautiful about Japanese poetry, but especially Japanese poetry about death…poetry and prose regarding death, dreams, and memories have an extra weight and heft to them, whilst still being able to maintain an ethereal, dreamy, nostalgic, cozy warm delivery in their thematic idea exploration. --Traveling Book Nerds"

"A wonderful introduction to the Japanese tradition of jisei, this volume is crammed with exquisite, spontaneous verse and pithy, often hilarious, descriptions of the eccentric and committed monastics who wrote the poems.—Tricycle: The Buddhist Review" --This text refers to the paperback edition.

About the Author

Professor Yoel Hoffmann has written several books on Buddhism and comparative philosophy, including The Sound of the One Hand, Radical Zen: the Sayings of Joshu, and The Idea of Self-East and West. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00R1W9PEW
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tuttle Publishing; Original ed. edition (April 15, 1998)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 15, 1998
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 18427 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 354 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #125,245 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #3 in Asian Poetry (Kindle Store)
- #4 in Japanese Poetry & Haiku
- #8 in Poetry Anthologies (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
420 ratings

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4 star		11%
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2 star		1%
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Top reviews from the United States

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Maria Laura Fernandez

Would give 6 stars

Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2020

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This book was incredibly insightful. The amount of information built into the introduction is unbelievable, and the entire format is very easy to maneuver. Cannot recommend more highly! Honestly one of the best books I have ever read.

3 people found this helpful

gingblack@aol.com

Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2017

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Educational, moving, and considering that they are Death Poems, enjoyable. The notes with each poem are very succinct and enlightening. I wonder if these writers would have imagined that there last Poems before death would be available centuries later for 1.99 on a Kindle. Everything is an illusion.

24 people found this helpful

Benjamin Tanner

Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2018

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Interesting, well made, came quickily

One person found this helpful

Beautiful book! The unusual walkway into Japan's old history's!

Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2022

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This books of poetries is representing the walkway into the last thought of most educated and privileged social class of Japan in 9-17 centuries: the was a samurai's tradition to write a poetry just before the death. Here is a sample: Mumon Gensen, at the age of 68 in 1390:
Life is an ever-rolling wheel
And every day is the right one.
He who recites poems at his death
Adds frost to snow.

Eliane Lundberg-Tanaka

essential and timeless

Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2012

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The death poem, or jisei in Japanese, is expected to be composed in addition to a last will and testament. This book's masterful compiler, Yoel Hoffmann, notes in his introduction that jisei have been interpreted as final concessions to politeness and proper social conduct (i.e., they are salutations to those still living), but quickly dismisses this theory by showing how few of these poems are written using the honorific language intended for such salutations. This collection offers us both tanka written by Zen monks and a larger helping of death-related haiku: for those unfamiliar with the mechanics of those styles, the former is a 5-line poem following a pattern of "5-7-5-7-7" syllables per line, while the latter is a 3-line poem following a "5-7-5" pattern of syllables per line. Neither uses any rhyming convention, even though the vast majority of the words in the Japanese language end with one of the five vowel sounds.

Hoffman's synopsis of tanka poetry's spiritual inclinations is as accurate as any you're likely to read (he likens the poet to "a person holding two mirrors in his hands, one reflecting a scene from nature, the other reflecting himself as he holds the first mirror (p. 19-20.)" The vast majority of the poems here were recorded on dates during the Tokugawa period of Japan (1603-1868), even though jisei practice only really became de rigeur in the subsequent Meiji era. Nevertheless, the Tokugawa-era poems perfectly reflect the dramatic increase in cultural pursuits - the fabled ukiyo or 'floating world - particular to that time. This collection also shows the great friction between the Japanese heathen spirit of Shinto and the neo-Confuciansim popular during the Tokugawa era: the former's identification with nature spirits and the latter's more anthropocentric morality sometimes mesh perfectly in the poems, and sometimes make for bold moments of incongruity.

The book's publisher, Tuttle, is one that specializes in Asian-themed books (travel journals, reprints of classics etc.) In their case, keeping this restrictive policy towards their choice of subject matter has allowed them to, ironically, release books that maintain a very universal appeal. Japanese Death Poems is one of these: despite the author's careful attempts to explain who wrote which poems under what uniquely Japanese historical conditions, these epigrams rarely fail to transcend time and place. Having said that, there are examples here that would be highly relevant to practicing Japanologists: there are entries from the renowned painter Hokusai (who pictures himself as a ball of blue fire hovering in the air), from haiku master Basho's oft-boastful pupil Kyoriku, and from several of the famous 47 ronin [masterless samurai] that inspired so many legends and epic films. Along with the historical perspectives come knowledge of cultural facts that may be unknown to new students of this culture, such as the Buddhist convention of giving a deceased person a new name, or the metaphorical significance of birds like the plover and hototogisu (cuckoo.)

Ultimately, though, the book's main selling point is not its ability to fill the gaps in one's historical knowledge, but its ability to provide fresh, unexpected perspectives on the great, creeping inevitability of death. One surprise comes in the sheer breadth of humor, from cheeky to mordant, that animates many of these entries: there are, for example, death poems that poke fun at the institution of death poems themselves, and also ones that upset the Japanese notion of reverence for grand masters in any craft: one poet takes the lines of Basho's famous death poem ("On a journey, ill: / my dream goes wandering / over withered fields") and twists them into the irreverent parody "Locked in my room / my dream goes wandering / over brothels." Elsewhere, the poet Moriya Sen'an unleashes some skillful punning while anticipating a happily debauched afterlife: he requests to be buried beneath a leaky wine barrel, with the gag being that the Japanese for "the cask will leak" ("moriyasennan") is phonetically identical to the writer's name. When not surprising with comic devices, we can find other moments of extreme unorthodoxy in this book, such as when a character named Shisui is asked to compose a death poem, but merely paints an enso in his dying moments (an enso being the plain black circle characteristic to Zen Buddhism, symbolizing 'void as essence' and enlightenment.) The Zen monk Takuan Soho chose a similar method, painting the Chinese character for "dream" in lieu of a death poem as he breathed his last. The orthodox entries are no less interesting, though, showing that much sublimity and individuality is possible even when working within the rules, like the suggestion that death poems should include a seasonal image from the time in which the writer is dying.

Buddhist ethics and views on eternity do, naturally, color much of the poetry in this volume: this may be problematic for anyone who absolutely cannot handle a good dose of Mahayana Buddhism in particular (a philosophy in which the "void" is not the opposite of the phenomenal world, but rather "the world in all its shapes and colors" itself [p. 306.]) If this way of thinking doesn't agree with you, there is plenty of poetry here making no explicit or implicit reference to articles of Buddhist faith. Some do anyway, and yet are no less effective in their simple poignancy, or their ability to be applied to the lives of any mortal: see for example Sofu's entry, which reads "Festival of Souls: / yesterday I hosted them / today I am a guest..." Whatever one's inclination towards Buddhist thought, many of the stories Hoffman unearths are fascinating and vital- who can fail to crack a smile at the story of the poor monk Eisai (1141-1215, a founder of Japanese Zen): he traveled to Kyoto near his death in order to "show people how to die," willed himself to die while sitting in a meditative zazen position, but then revived when his audience complained that he had died too quickly!

I highly recommend Japanese Death Poems as a nuanced alternative to the more sensationalist (when not inaccurate or outright fabricated) "dark side of Japan" material. Given, the libidinous extremes uncovered by those other accounts are mind-altering when produced properly, but I often wonder what end purpose motivates these publishers' enthusiastic quest to show only the most blood-soaked side of Japanese life and death. A personal regimen of welcoming aestheticized psycho-terror (or, as the U.S. Marines call it, "embracing the suck") works to a certain degree, but unchecked death drive produces vastly diminishing returns when taken on as a ful-time way of life. So, when you do tire of that, there are books like these to turn to, which contain more genuine surprises than many of the books claiming they will shock you out of your cultural torpor. Whether these compact little jisei are motivated by an inherited Confucian sense of duty, by pure egotism, or other factors, the effect of reading them all is intoxicating: there is something special about people forcing themselves to contribute to creative life even as death prepares to swallow them up. I leave the last word to Hoffman here, since he shows what it is that ignites this spiritual defiance:

"...how wise and humane is a culture that does not contrive an otherworldly supreme being to rule this world, the only one we know. One might ask what there is to be gained from a 'spiritual' sovereign who disturbs the peace of man with commands to act one way or another, promising in exchange an eternal world where scent, shape and color never enter [...] [Japanese nature] is not nature as understood by Western religions, the work of a creator who stands apart from his work, but nature bursting with vitality, appearing and disappearing in cycles of life and death, os summer and winter, spring and fall (p. 38-39)."

31 people found this helpful

A collection of gems

Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2019

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Intriguing theme for a collection that makes every poem all the more poignant. These brief poems are given good context by the collector/translator, but the real draw is the poems themselves. Most are not morbid but instead small crystallizations of wonder or beauty.

4 people found this helpful

Scott C. Locklin

Lovely peek into a venerable cultural tradition

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2008

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It is traditional in Japan to have a poem on your lips at the time of your death. Many cultures have the tradition of ascribing importance to the "last words" of a dying person, but I think Japan is unique in attempting to make death a beautiful aesthetic experience. As such, this collection has something for all humanity. Death is something we'll all eventually face; doing so with something approaching dignity is something we can all hope to do.

Many cultures and religions have a tradition of a sort of happy hunting ground for an afterlife, to provide comfort to the masses of people who have had a hard life. It is my sense that the Japanese didn't have this sort of tradition in Shinto or Zen. As such, the Japanese approach to the end of life has particular poignancy for modern secular humanists, who also have no "happy hunting ground" to hope for.

I can't speculate whether or not the poems are well translated, or the cultural anthropology was accurate, but I found the collection profoundly moving.

13 people found this helpful

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2013

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this book has a wonderful introduction. it is a large chunk of the book, instead of the usual ten pages or so it's 87 pages! this serves to educate the reader on japanese poetry throughout history and it is very useful in understanding and internalizing the poems.

after that are the poems of zen monks, many with little mini biographies preceding them that often leave you wishing you could read all about the poets, even more so after you read their last words! some of these poems made my hair stand on end in awe. very deep and transcendental words.

next is the haiku poets, also truly beautiful and unique.

5 people found this helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Suki

Definitely recommend

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 29, 2019

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My lad chose this book. Researched it... feels like reading variety of books enhance his vocabulary and knowledge

2 people found this helpful

Neo

Remarkable book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 19, 2021

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Great quality of research & compilation. Very interesting angle of view on Haiku. I recommend this book to any Haiku or Zen/Buddhism enthusiast. Well done Professor Hoffmann and thank you.

One person found this helpful

Student of Japanese

Great thought provoking little book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 3, 2012

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Wonderful little book containing the last words and thoughts of some of Japan's most prolific and astute minds.

Really handy intro explaining verse form and history as well as popular trends. It includes not only the poems themselves, but a romanised (phonetic) Japanese script. My only wish is that it had included the verse in kanji (Chinese characters) as well (as a student of Japanese, it would have been helpful to developing my reading skills).

Also an efficient delivery from the seller, which is an added bonus.

6 people found this helpful

S. Larkin

Don't think this is full of sad or depressing poetry

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 9, 2015

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Insightful and sometimes profound. What more important subject for poetry is there? Don't think this is full of sad or depressing poetry. If you're a fan of Haiku or other forms of Japanese poetry then this is well worth a look.

6 people found this helpful

Mr. E

Part historical overview, part poetry book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 12, 2012

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This is a nicely sized, chunky book, well bound and presented.

This book is both essentially a poetry book, that lists hundreds, if not thousands of poems written by both Monks, Samurai, and other poets from the 12th century, to the late 19th.

The haiku are presented in English, with their Japanese translation in Romaji, to allow you to `read' them in their original form, should you so desire. There are occasionally notes after certain haiku regarding their author, the manner of their death and any other interesting information.

I was more interested in the relatively short first part of the book, which includes an introduction to Japanese poetry as a whole, before going on to introduce death poetry set within the cultural context of Japan.

I wish that more of the book was devoted to a full explanation of the history and culture surrounding the death poems, rather than having pages and pages and pages of poems themselves, but in any case, it is a good read, and has clearly been extensively researched, with help from academics at Kyoto University and Nihon University amongst others, and living Zen masters.

This is not an academic book, for anyone expecting it to be so, it is consumer-oriented, but is a pretty solid introduction to the whole topic, well recommended!

13 people found this helpful

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