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232 American JISEI The Japanese death poem, or jisei, is traditionally written by monks and haiku poets immediately before their deaths. When I was most depressed, This is the “death poem,” or jisei certain scenarios would play in my head. of a Japanese poet named Kaisho. I would imagine picking some unincorporated tract Although the consciousness of death is in the high desert where gravel roads tail out in most cultures very much a part of life, into sand, where it would take this is perhaps nowhere more true than in Japan, months to find a body where the approach of death deep in a tangle of creosote bushes has given rise to a centuries-old tradition or propped against a Joshua Tree of writing such a poem, 233 A suicide note would be a luxury often at the very moment I could not afford myself, a small poem maybe. the poet is breathing his last. Note: The ten lines interwoven into “American Jisei” are quoted from the front jacket flap of Japanese Death Poems, compiled by Yoel Hoffmann (Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1986) ...

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