Death poem waka. Sometimes they are written in the three-line, seventeen-syllable haiku form, although the most common type of death poem (called a "jisei" 辞世) is in the waka form called the tanka (also called a "jisei-ei" 辞世詠) which consists of five lines totaling 31 syllables (5-7-5-7-7)—a form that constitutes over half of surviving death poems.(Ogiu, 317-318). Poetry has long been a core part of Japanese tradition. Death poems are typically graceful, natural, and emotionally neutral, in accordance with the teachings of Buddhism and Shinto. Excepting the earliest works of this tradition, it has been considered inappropriate to mention death explicitly; rather,
Paul Conneally publication of "Parade of Life: Poems inspired by Japanese Prints" featuring Japanese woodblock prints alongside haiku written by children and visitors to the museum in workshop with Conneally and co-edited by former British Haiku Society Secretary and haiku poet Alan Summers. The book had launches in Bristol, UK and Akita, Japan. His work with school children to produce museum labels for artefacts on the SS Great Britain in the form of tanka, mesostic poems and riddles is featured on the Teachers' TV channel being used in a classroom by a teacher as an example of model practice in interpreting artefacts.