Baseball Haiku: The Best Haiku Ever Written about the Game (Hardcover)

~ (Editor), Nanae Tamura (Editor)
Key Phrases: modern haiku, baseball haiku, first haiku, New York, Haiku Society of America, Red Moon Press (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post

Hearing a ball game on the radio recently said spring to me, as does any trip to Yankee stadium (now in its last season before demolition). In New York, the chatter about team injuries can take on a tribal intensity -- which is why I cracked Baseball Haiku: American and Japanese Haiku and Senryu on Baseball. Editor and translator Cor van den Heuvel is a haiku aficionado whose single-image poems capture moments from my own baseball-centered childhood, like these two:

baseball cards
spread out on the bed
April rain

biking to the field
under a cloudless sky
my glove on the handlebars

In George Swede's work, as is evident in the two here, the natural world interrupts and supercedes play, lending totemic power to things like dandelion seeds and sunbeams:

empty baseball field
a dandelion seed floats through
the strike zone

village ball game
through knotholes in the old fence
evening sunbeams

Michael Fessler, who's published two books on the game along with five of haiku, best captures the game's players. His last line really drags me into the intimacy of those screaming matches:

August heat
umpire and manager
nose to nose

Despite the sometimes curious carnal power of these poems in English, the Japanese poets managed to make the haiku a spiritual instant -- delicate as tissue paper. Imai Sei even creates psychological complexity:

after the error
the player still faces the outfield
towering clouds

Such feeling in such a small space. These haiku prove that in a secular culture, the stadium -- from little league through the majors -- may be the closest many Americans get to a house of worship, which is why I end with Raffael de Gruttola's meditation on eternity:

lost in the lights
the high fly ball that
never comes down

(All of these poems appear in "Baseball Haiku: American and Japanese Haiku and Senryu on Baseball," edited with translations by Cor van den Heuvel and Nanae Tamura. Norton. 2007. Copyright 2007 by Cor van den Heuvel and individual copyrights by the poets.)

Mary Karr's most recent book of poems is "Sinners Welcome."

Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist

Introduced to Japan in 1872, the quintessentially American game of baseball has inspired more than a century of poetry written on both sides of the Pacific in the quintessentially Japanese literary form of the haiku. An appropriately international partnership of editors-translators--one American, one Japanese--here bring readers a marvelous sampling of these haiku. Including work from 15 Japanese masters (including the acclaimed Masoaka Shiki) and 30 American poets (including the Beat genius Jack Kerouac), this anthology delivers unforgettable baseball experiences in striking imagery. Light rain raising puffs of dust from the infield, a drooping flag cueing a manager to shift his outfielders, a cricket serenading an outfielder in his lonely vigil--these and scores of other baseball moments live forever in the tight compression of these poems. The natural fit between baseball and haiku (and the closely related senryu) comes into historical and conceptual focus in an insightful introduction and afterword, where van den Heuvel ponders this cross-cultural intersection. A rare book, appealing to both die-hard fan and literary critic. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (April 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393062198
• ISBN-13: 978-0393062199
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #249,998 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haiku Hits a Stand-up Double, May 28, 2007

By	Clyde Glandon (Tulsa, OK USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For a book of haiku --about baseball no less-- to break out into wider readership the way this book has is reminiscent of Dave Brubeck and Stan Getz bringing jazz into the popular music charts in the 1960's. My sister gave me this book for my birthday and, as Thomas Merton wrote, as long as it talks, I'm going to listen.

Cor van den Heuvel and Nanae Tamura have assembled a tour de force of baseball haiku. America brought baseball to Japan and Japan gifted this country with haiku. There is a most enjoyable introduction about the history of baseball haiku in both countries. The book has a long section of haiku by well-known, and less well-known, haiku poets in the United States, followed by a rich collection of translated Japanese haiku featuring the game. Van den Heuvel concludes with an appreciative essay on baseball in the United States and Japan.

Here are some samples which reflect moments which come in the world of baseball:

walking home
with his glove on his head
shrieking cicadas
Imai Sei

summer afternoon
the long fly ball to center field
takes its time
Cor van den Heuvel

dog days of summer
twenty-three games
out of first
Michael Ketchek

This last poem sounds the tone of melancholy, called wabi in the classic Japanese haiku tradition, which many of the haiku in this book capture beautifully and hauntingly, and which is certainly is eventually present for any young or aging participant (or observer) in the game. Here are a few more evocations:

while playing ball
it becomes time to go home
to supper
Kawahigashi Hekigoto

calm evening
the ballgame play-by-play
across the water
Jim Kacian

Baseball haiku, because of their brevity, will not provide the same kind of reading as Jimmy Breslin's writing about the 1962 Mets in his chapter "They're Afraid to Come Out," nor Ed Linn's reporting on Ted Williams' last game in 1960.

But they make their own special offering. Speaking of melancholy, in my case I grew up in the 1950's in Kansas City, which gives a certain meaning to the term Kansas City Blues. By the way, Cor van den Heuvel loves jazz too. Get the book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Those Moments Which Make Us Catch Our Breath, June 3, 2008

By	Hortensia Anderson "Hortensia Anderson" (nyc, ny, usa) - See all my reviews

The flyleaf of Baseball Haiku begins "there are moments in every baseball game that make fans catch their breath...Haiku captures these moments like no other poetic form..." and there you have it.
If I had to choose the quintessential kigo (season word) for "summer", it would have to be "baseball". Although played in spring and autumn, nothing for me says "summer" like a baseball game (and at the beach, listening to a game on the radio).
Jim Kacian slyly elevates the game to a religion:

October revival
all hands lift
to the foul ball

while Brenda Gannon has some wonderful plays (!) on sex:

handsome pitcher
my eyes drift down
to the mound

Many of Van Den Heuvel's own haiku deal with the anticipation of the game:

baseball cards
spread out on the bed
April rain

a spring breeze
flutters the notice
for baseball tryouts

as well as my favourite:

lingering snow
the game of catch continues
into evening

The Japanese haiku have a definite and different expression but the feel and impressions are similar.
My only wish is that there could be more!

5.0 out of 5 stars Not an Oxymoron, June 30, 2008

By	M. Haines "a steady reader" (Seattle) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Baseball haiku is indeed a genre of which I was unaware. This is a wonderful book for fans of the lore of baseball, history, and the art of Haiku.