Marvin Bell invented the form of the Dead Man Poem in the 1990s, inspired by the Zen admonition Live as if you were already dead.
The form is two-part call-and-response, and as Bell writes hooked me with its music and capacity.
Georgia Review proclaimed The Dead Man poems change the game.
The Dead Man himself is both alive and dead at the same time, and less a persona than an overarching consciousness.