Yukiko Inoue-Smith, PhD, is a Professor in the Faculty of the School of Education at the University of Guam, where she teaches educational psychology and research. She has been extensively involved in work with tanka, which is Japan’s oldest poetry genre. While presenting and promoting tanka at professional conferences and workshops, she has written her own tanka poems, which have been published regionally, nationally, and internationally. Many of her tanka poems have received awards. She has also taught a course in tanka poetry in the University’s Language and Literacy Program. In Guam, she has participated in a variety of poetry events and activities, including contributing her tanka poems to a local weekly newspaper, Guam Shinbun since 1991. Her tanka books recently published include: “Was it all a dream?”; “Cat tanka, vol. 1”; “Cat tanka, vol. 2”; “The shape of love”; and “The wail of Gaea.” Just as strong her passion for teaching and research as a college professor, she considers poetry an equally important element of her life’s work.