A review by foggy_rosamund
Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death by Yoel Hoffmann
5.0
I've been reading this book since August, and have found a lot of solace, insight and beauty within its pages. People keep making fun of me for reading a book of Death Poems before bed, but it's honestly been a huge comfort to me.
This book consists of three sections: a long introduction, discussing the history and practice of writing death poems, and what such poems meant to the people who wrote them. Then there is a section of death poems written by Zen monks, which are usually five- or six-line poems, often directly discussing Buddhism or enlightenment. The longest section by far is the last, which contains the death poems of haiku poets from Basho onwards. The haiku appear in English with cross translation of Japanese written phonetically in English, and are often glossed with some details about the poet's life or explanations of references in the poem.
I loved the last section of this book, and found myself returning to poems again and again. The poems are not all of equal quality -- some of them are by people who are not well-known poets, or not poets at all, and some poems return to the same images again and again -- the "world of dew", the morning-glory, the boat crossing the river, all feature multiple times. But some poems elevate even these tired images, and some poems feel utterly unique and create a moment of great insight.
Quoted below are two of my favourite poems from this collection:
The running stream
is cool -- the pebbles
underfoot.
--Chiboku, 1740
I cast the brush aside --
from here on I'll speak to the moon
face to face.
--Koha, 1897
This book consists of three sections: a long introduction, discussing the history and practice of writing death poems, and what such poems meant to the people who wrote them. Then there is a section of death poems written by Zen monks, which are usually five- or six-line poems, often directly discussing Buddhism or enlightenment. The longest section by far is the last, which contains the death poems of haiku poets from Basho onwards. The haiku appear in English with cross translation of Japanese written phonetically in English, and are often glossed with some details about the poet's life or explanations of references in the poem.
I loved the last section of this book, and found myself returning to poems again and again. The poems are not all of equal quality -- some of them are by people who are not well-known poets, or not poets at all, and some poems return to the same images again and again -- the "world of dew", the morning-glory, the boat crossing the river, all feature multiple times. But some poems elevate even these tired images, and some poems feel utterly unique and create a moment of great insight.
Quoted below are two of my favourite poems from this collection:
The running stream
is cool -- the pebbles
underfoot.
--Chiboku, 1740
I cast the brush aside --
from here on I'll speak to the moon
face to face.
--Koha, 1897