NABC Store Manager's Diary — August 19, 2026 (Wed) — A Day Off

Today is Wednesday, so I have the day off. The shop is open, but since there is a meeting for the “Tokai Tanka Anthology” at Heiwaen from 7:00 PM, I headed to the west side of the station again today. “Tokai Tanka Anthology 2026 ‘Seeds of Song’” was created by young tanka poets スズキ皐月さん and 永井文鳥さん, who wanted to provide a place for younger people in the Tokai region with an interest in tanka to present their work. The other day we held a talk event at our shop titled “Editor's Afterword,” where the two editors and Hiroyuki Ogiwara, who read all the poems and wrote comments, spoke. At the end we discussed the next issue and agreed that another issue should be published. For the first meeting, Suzuki, Nagai, and Fujisaki and Itō — who will join as staff from this time — and I gathered. Unfortunately, Suzuki was absent due to poor health, so the remaining members talked over the general approach and decided to meet again with Suzuki to go over the results. We agreed that we want to further energize tanka in the Tokai region (Aichi, Gifu, Mie). By the way, from the next issue onward we will stop holding related events at our shop, and both I and the shop will participate in this anthology project in a supporting/backing role.