"The tanka anthology is a compendium of more than 800 poems by nearly 70 poets from around the world, the foremost practitioners of the ancient and modern genre of tanka. While poets continue to experiment, the contemporary tanka in English may be described as typically an untitled free-verse short poem having anywhere from about twelve to thirty-one syllables arranged in words and phrases over five lines, crafted to stand alone as a unitary, aesthetic whole - a complete poem. Excepting those written in a minimalist style, a tanka is about two breaths in length when read aloud. During the last thirty years, it has emerged as a robust short form that is identifiable as a distinct verse type while being extremely variable in its details."--BOOK JACKET.