The haiku, already well established as a poetic precursor overseas, has now been followed by the tanka. The popularity of one type of short poem from Japan has led to a deepening interest in other forms that the same tradition has to offer.
Historically, of course, the 31-syllable tanka precedes the 17-syllable haiku by more than a thousand years. Michael McClintock's detailed introduction to "The Tanka Anthology" describes the background of the form in early writing, its predominance in the first great anthologies of poetry, and its naturalness and suitability to the rhythms of the Japanese language. From its first appearance in the eighth-century "Man'yoshu" to its best-seller status at the hands of contemporary poets, this form has had an extraordinarily long run by any standards.
Consciously modeled on Cor van den Heuvel's popular volume, "The Haiku Anthology" (3rd edition 1999), "The Tanka Anthology" aims to introduce the work of Western writers in this form. A hundred years ago, when Japanese literature was first translated into English, there was very little understanding of, and almost no differentiation between, these closely related poetic forms. Now all that has changed, and the differences are clear. McClintock's introductory essay describes the slow absorption, and the varied experiments in English, from the cinquain that Adelaide Crapsey invented, to the generally freer forms today.