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| Issue 33: | August 2026 |
| Tanku-bun: | 80 words |
| Poet’s Commentary: | 114 words |
By Colleen M. Farrelly (plain text)
and Cynthia Bale (italics)
Residuum
A chill tinges the air as the sun sinks behind an abandoned building like a shadow lurking in a seedy alley. Dead leaves rustle against fresh bouquets lining the chain link fence—now padlocked, now adorned with caution tape. A lone tree weeps alongside its gate, swaying towards the sunset. I hurry past. And shiver.
bare branches piercing the last light school bullet holes little dents on a bald dandelion mark their absence ... so many new lives blown away
Poet’s Commentary by Farrelly
Tanku-bun started during a session through Haiku Society of America’s Social Club Program, when Cynthia Bale gave a comprehensive talk on tanka, including an exposition on a new form called tanku* (which collaboratively links a haiku and tanka). Originally, we attempted this form in the same manner as the tan-renga-bun; however, we struggled to write a compelling tanku-bun. Cynthia suggested a typical paragraph-haiku/tanka extension to replace the haiku or tanka with a linked tanku. As we wrote, the form seemed amenable to the same range of topics found in haibun and tanka prose, including our pieces “Residuum” above, and “Wrapped Up” in Contemporary Haibun Online 22.1 (1 August 2026).
*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).
In 2023, Shabda Press released Distance, the first collection of tan-ku by Kolodji and Kitakubo, and a second collection in 2025, Eternal (a tribute to Kolodji). The two poets co-founded The Tan-ku Association, and Kitakubo edits the Association’s online magazine, Kizuna (Number 4, June 2026). - Collaborative tan-ku by Lee Hudspeth and Kathabela Wilson are published in MacQueen’s Quinterly: Rapture and Relief in Issue 29, and Planetarium in Issue 30.
- 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 longer version by Padhy also appears at The Haiku Foundation: Hainka: A Fusion of Haiku and Tanka.
Links reconfirmed in August 2026.
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