Ame ni mo makezu

Ame ni mo makezu (雨ニモマケズ, 'Be not Defeated by the Rain')[1] is a poem written by Kenji Miyazawa,[2] a poet from the northern prefecture of Iwate in Japan who lived from 1896 to 1933.

It was written in a notebook with a pencil in 1931 while he was fighting illness in Hanamaki, and was discovered posthumously, unknown even to his family when it was published.

In the notebook with Ame ni mo makezu, Kenji wrote about his thoughts on his sickbed, his religious beliefs, and the important events of his life.

Although Kenji did not intend to show Ame ni mo makezu to others as poetry, it has become his most widely known poem and is considered one of his masterpieces.

The limited use of kanji might be viewed as a move to make his poem more accessible to the rural folk of northern Japan with whom he spent his life,[citation needed] or perhaps as similar to American poet E. E. Cummings's style in using primarily lower case.