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,
Asian literature Asian literature Asian literature is the literature produced in Asia. In Tang and Song dynasty China, famous poets such as Li Bai authored works of great importance. They wrote "shī" (Classical Chinese: 詩) poems, which have lines with equal numbers of characters, as well as "cí" (詞) poems with mixed line varieties. Early-Modern Japanese literature (17th–19th centuries) developed comparable innovations such as haiku, a form of Japanese poetry that evolved from the ancient "hokku" (Japanese language: 発句) mode. Haiku consists of three lines: the first and third lines each have five "morae" (the rough phonological equivalent of syllables), while the