Haiku poet Cor van den Heuvel, co-editor of Baseball Haiku will be joined by other contributing poets to the collection for the Chautauqua Literary & Scientific Circle program.
As van den Heuvel writes in the introduction, "Haiku and baseball were made for each other: While haiku give us moments in which nature is linked to human nature, baseball is played in the midst of the natural elements -- on the field under an open sky; and as haiku happen in a timeless now, so does baseball, for there is no clock ticking in a baseball game -- the game's not over until the last out."
This collection, which includes poems from both America and Japan, captures perfectly the thrill of baseball -- a double play, a game of catch, or the hushed pause as a pitcher looks in before hurling his pitch.
Featuring the work of Jack Kerouac, who penned the first American baseball haiku, and Alan Pizzarelli, a major American haiku poet, the collection also includes Masaoka Shiki, one of the four great pillars of Japanese haiku, who was instrumental in popularizing baseball in Japan during the 1890s- Chautauqua Institution
Bio
Ed Markowski
Ed Markowski is a haiku poet whose work has appeared in The Birmingham Poetry Review, Blind Man's Rainbow, Bear Creek Haiku, Bottle Rockets, Brevities, The Elysian Fields Baseball Quarterly, Fan Magazine, Heron's Nest, MayFly, Modern Haiku, Nerve Cowboy, The Parnassus Literary Journal, Raw Nervz Haiku, The River Rouge Examiner, Sho Magazine, Short Stuff, Slow Trains, and Snapshots.
Alan Pizzarelli
Pizzarelli has published 12 collections of his haiku and senryu including The Flea Circus, City Beat, which won the Merit Book Award's first place in 1992, Senryu Magazine, The Windswept Corner.
His work has been widely anthologized in many major publications, including in each of the three editions of The Haiku Anthology, edited by Cor van den Heuvel (1974, 1986, 1999), the third edition including 43 of his haiku and senryu.
Cor van den Heuvel
Cor Van Den Heuvel is an American Haiku poet, editor, commentator and archivist. He has published at least 12 books of his own haiku, including one on baseball.
Hello: I immensely enjoyed your baseball haiku telecast. My name is al fogel--a 65 year old retired gentleman residing in Miami Beach, Florida. I began writing senryu 3 months ago and created a baseball haiku / senryu sequence comprised of 13 haiku/ senryu titled "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" that I would like to share with your audience
Take Me Out To The Ball Game
(a haiku / senryu baseball sequence)
pre-game:
Bobblehead Day
pigeons in the bleachers
pecking seeds
Yankee Tribute Day
8 Yogi Berra's
in the front row
Old Timer's Game
Whitey Ford's fastball
clocked at 28 mph
autograph signing
the line of outstretched notepads
above the dugout
the game:
knuckleball
the infielders watch
a flying bat
fastball
a thud in the mitt
before he swings
strike three!
different fingers fly
from ump and batter
7th inning stretch
the heightened aroma
of hot dogs and beer
14th inning
a stray pigeon wobbles
into the empty bullpen
15th inning
the shortstop becomes
the pitcher
walk-off home run
homer pigeons nodding
in the stands
post-game:
game over
the slap of high fives
from the infield
next day
watching my team win again...
instant replay
--al fogel
Thanks for viewing,
al
**first verse Bobblehead Day.." selected as runner-up in the HCC Calendar Competition 2011 (1,100 entries)