Cor Van Den Heuvel

I had no idea that there was a body of Haiku (the 17-syllable requirement, by the by, is a bit of a falsity), both Japanese and American, with baseball as a subject. The earliest presented here date back to a Japanese baseball haiku (the world's first) from 1890. There is even a pretty decent one from 1959 by Jack Kerouac. The haiku are grouped by author in chronological order, first American, then Japanese (translated into English, printed in Japanese characters, and phonetic Japanese).

These are some favorites:

Rookie's first hit ---
picked off at first

(Bud Goodrich, 1919 ---)

geese flying north
the pitcher stops his windup
to watch

pitcher and catcher
head for the dugout
the batter stares at his bat

(both by Cor van den Heuvel, 1931 ---)

handsome pitcher
my eyes drift down
to the mound

(a delightful double entendre by one of the few female poets here, Brenda Gannam, 1950 ---)

the last kid picked
running his fastest
to right field

(Mike Dillon, 1950 ---)

rainy night
a hole in the radio
where a ball game should be

(Ed Markowski, 1954 ---)

my son runs toward
the budding tree ---
their first base

(Hoshino Tsunehiko, 1935 ---)

A delightful book on a field I had no idea existed, a thoughtful gift from an old friend who knows me well.… (més)