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| Issue 29: | August 2025 |
| Tan-ku: | 22 words |
| Collaborative | Micro-Poem |
By Kathabela Wilson and Lee Hudspeth
Rapture
looking into the mirror the stars have entered her body swirling inside and out a galaxy’s arms cradling pinpoints of light
—Tanka (first stanza above) by Kathabela Wilson;
haiku (second stanza) by Lee Hudspeth
Publisher’s Notes:
- 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). - 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.
Kathabela Wilson
(aka Kath Abela Wilson) is an independent artist, freelance writer, researcher, and poet. Her first full-length book of poetry, Figures of Humor and Strange Beauty, was published in 2019 by Glass Lyre Press in Chicago, and her e-chapbooks Driftwood Monster: Haiku for Troubled Times and The Owl Still Asking: Tanka for Troubled Times were released in 2017 by Moira Press (Locofo Chaps).
Her tanka and tanka prose have been published in Atlas Poetica; Bright Stars (anthology); Eucalypt; Haibun Today; Kōkako; Moonbathing; Notes from the Gean; red lights; Ribbons; and Skylark, among others. Her haiku and free verse appear in numerous anthologies and print and online journals. In addition to receiving recognition in major haiku and senryu competitions, she was First Place winner of the 2017 Fujisan Taisho Tanka Contest and received the 2017 Dwarf Stars Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. She also won the first place Afrodite award in the Croatia haiku contest 2024.
Wilson created and leads Poets on Site, a writing and poetry performance group active since 2010, and has edited many of the group’s anthologies. She has served as Secretary of the Tanka Society of America since 2013, and was elected as its President in 2025. She has coordinated the YTHS Tokutomi Haiku Contest each year since 2020 and serves as editor of the Poets’ Salon for the Colorado Boulevard website.
The poet resides in Pasadena with her Caltech emeritus mathematician husband, a collector and player of historical flutes. He accompanies her poetry performances on flutes of the world. They have traveled together for 25 years participating in international mathematics and poetry conferences in Asia, Europe and the USA.
Lee Hudspeth’s
poetry has been nominated for the Touchstone Awards and the Pushcart Prize. His collaborative poem with Joan C. Fingon (“A Day Between”) earned Honorable Mention in the 2023 HSA Rengay Award in Honor of Garry Gay. His debut, full-length poetry book Incandescent Visions was self-published in 2019. His poetry has appeared in Frogpond, Front Porch Review, The Heron’s Nest, Kingfisher Journal, Modern Haiku, Presence, Star*Line, tsuri-dōrō, and Wales Haiku Journal, among other journals and anthologies.
Hudspeth is also a musician and recording artist, and the co-founder of the online magazine The Naked PC. Learn more at his website:
https://leehudspeth.com
Publisher’s Note:
Hudspeth’s poems have also been anthologized by ai li, founding editor of the cherita: in four of her gembun anthologies, i remember (#16), empty bottles (#15), dancing silhouette (#14), and the water (#13); in three of her dua anthologies, wildflowers were here (#10), home in rain (#9), and no longer sky (#8); and in two of her cherita anthologies, the river (#85) and nomad (#82).
More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond
⚡ Poets Salon: Positive Energy by Kathabela Wilson in Colorado Boulevard (24 July 2024); includes “Fireworks” and “Tanabata” tan-ku, “...the last two new works written together by dear friends Mariko Kitakubo and Deborah P. Kolodji...”
⚡ Skyward, collaborative rengay by Lee Hudspeth and Joan C. Fingon in Issue 26 of MacQueen’s Quinterly (January 2025)
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