Publisher’s Notes:

1. The tan-ku is a collaborative poetic form created in 2020 by soulmates Deborah P. Kolodji (1959–2024) and Mariko Kitakubo, “to overcome the loneliness of not being able to travel to each other’s country for three years during the pandemic” (Kitakubo Greetings).
   
   With tan-ku, one poet writes a tanka and the other replies with a haiku—or vice versa, one poet writes haiku and the other replies with tanka. The resulting two-stanza poem (aka “tan-ku set”) must have a title, which should not include words or phrases from either of the stanzas. Tan-ku may also be written in sequences, that is, two or more “tan-ku sets.” An example: Prehistory (Under the Bashō, 9 August 2024). And most important, the two poets must share an emotional bond.
   
   For more about tan-ku’s origins, see A Poem by the Sea in Experience (Beach Terrace blog, 10 October 2023). The first collection of tan-ku by Kolodji and Kitakubo, Distance, was released by Shabda Press in 2023, and a second is also forthcoming: Eternal (a tribute to Kolodji). The two poets co-founded The Tan-ku Association, and Kitakubo edits the association’s online magazine, Kizuna (Number 2, July 2025).
   
   
2. Pravat Kumar Padhy (haibun editor, Under the Bashō) introduced a solo poetic form which fuses haiku and tanka, described in this article for Writer’s Digest (25 February 2022): Hainka (Haiku and Tanka): A New Genre of Poetic Form. A related article by Padhy also appears at The Haiku Foundation: Hainka: A Fusion of Haiku and Tanka.