"For many years, as part of teaching courses on classical Japanese literature, I created and participated in exercises where the students and I would write poems in English but in Japanese forms like haiku and tanka as a way to deepen our appreciation of Japanese poetry. It was only after coming to live on Gabriola Island that I shifted toward writing tanka as means of expressing my experience for its own sake. One catalyst was subscribing to a fledgling tanka journal Gusts started by a friend, Kozue Uzawa, which provided a venue for tanka submissions. The other catalyst was becoming friends with Naomi Beth Wakan, the well-known haiku poet and inspired provocateur of writing in others. Naomi involved me in workshops, where she taught haiku and I taught tanka. Naomi herself took up the tanka form enthusiastically. Recently, Naomi acquired a book of tanka poetry written by two Australian poets, Amelia Fielden and Kathy Kituai entitled In Two Minds, a book of what they called ‘responsive tanka.’ To have two short poems create a conversation with each other brought a whole new dimension into the presentation of tanka in English. Reading the book with delight, I mentioned to Naomi that we could try exchanging tanka for fun. ‘We certainly could and we’ll make a book out of it!’ was her response. Before I knew it, she had the book all planned out. Naomi is the only person I know who considers the writing of poetry seriously as a livelihood. And thus, this book was born. [ . . . ] The first poem on the page is the poem that launches the conversation, the second poem replies. We have taken turns with supplying the first poem. Sometimes the link between two paired tanka is by a single word, sometimes by shared subject, imagery, or tone. Sometimes the link is close, other times it is distant. Always between the two poems there is a resonance that expands the meaning beyond the sum of the two separate poems." —Sonja Arntzen, Introduction