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,
Haiku to what is now called "haiku". Bashō also used his "hokku" as torque points within his short prose sketches and longer travel diaries. This subgenre of "haikai" is known as "haibun". His best-known work, "Oku no Hosomichi", or "Narrow Roads to the Interior", is counted as one of the classics of Japanese literature and has been translated into English extensively. Bashō was deified by both the imperial government and Shinto religious headquarters one hundred years after his death because he raised the haikai genre from a playful game of wit to sublime poetry. He continues to be revered as a