Nearly a hundred poets from eighteen countries contributed more than 700 tanka to the anthology. The resulting mixture shows us the human condition is the same everywhere in the world. We work, we fall in love, we go to school, we shop, we travel, we worry, we worship, we fear, we aspire. We make homes and live dreams. Sometimes we are thwarted by illness, death, or crime. We have compassion for those less fortunate than ourselves, and when we are at our wit's end, we find spiritual sustenance where we least expect it: in the tattered beauty of a troubled world. In the end, we leave behind...