A Japanese poet and essayist, Masaoka Shiki was born in 1867 in Matsuyama, Japan. He attended University Preparatory College and Tokyo Imperial University, before dropping out from the latter due to illness. He worked for a newspaper and signed up as a war correspondent to China in 1895. Shiki was influential in developing a modern style of Japanese haiku and tanka. He wrote a book on his poetics, Utayomi-ni-atauru-sho (A Book Bestowed on Composers of Poems) and also edited the journal Hototogisu (Cuckoo). He died of tuberculosis in 1902.

Abby Ryder-Huth is a poet and translator from Michigan.