f/k/a archives . . . real opinions & real haiku

I don’t know if Ichiro Suzuki is a haiku fan, but I’m sure he inspired a poem or two at last night’s MLB All-Star Game — especially with his inside the park home run. (“Ichiro’s magic gives AL home field again, ” CBS Sports Line, July 11, 2007). Now that the controversial selection of Barry Bonds for the All-Star squad is behind us (see USAToday), the f/k/a Gang wants to remind you of the roster of haijin all-stars on our Baseball Haiku page, and in this year’s MVP anthology of sports poetry, Baseball Haiku (Cor van den Heuvel and Nanae Tamura, eds., W.W. Norton Press, April 2007).

Seattle sunset
Ichiro sends one
toward the Sea of Japan

fireflies…
the smallest boy hits
the game winning homer

……………………………………. by ed markowski, The Old BallGame (April 2006)

Poems from nine of our Honored Guest Poets were selected to appear with “the best haiku ever written about the game” in Baseball Haiku : randy brooks, tom clausen, lee gurga, jim kacian, ed markowski, tom painting, john stevenson, george swede, michael dylan welch. And, dagosan even got in as bat boy. You can find poems from the Baseball Haiku volume in several of our prior posts: e.g, here, here, and there, plus here; and we previewed the book back in January, here).

called third strike–
the slow roll of the ball
back to the mound

seventh inning stretch —
dust from dragging the bases
hangs in the air

……………………………………. by jim kacian from Baseball Haiku (2007)

Meanwhile, although it may not be as big a deal as Pope Benedict vs. The Non-Catholics (Chicago Sun-Times,” Catholicism is the only true church, Vatican declares,” July 11, 2007), the New York Times reports today on the competition between baseball bats made of ash and those made of maple, as well as the great threat posed by a killer beetle and warmer climate to ash trees, in “Balmy Weather May Bench a Baseball Staple” (July 11, 2007). Naturally, this calls for an aggregation of topically relevant haiku and senryu by our Honored Guests.

red maple
against the white wall
of the fire station

………….. by Alice Frampton, at World Haiku Association website

new shoots
on the big-leaf maple—
how blue the sky, how blue

………….. by michael dylan welch from Thornewood Poems

kissing…
a woodpecker works
the sugar maple

……………………………… ed markowski – from Bottle Rockets # 11

september wind
ash leaves follow
a swallow south

………………………………… by matt morden

light wind
a maple armada
leaves the shore

…………………………………. by Hilary Tann – Frogpond XXX:1

fading rainbow
a maple leaf swirls
down the drain

………….. by laryalee fraser

it brightens
through the silver maple . . .
cloudy afternoon

………………… by andrew riutta – Full Moon Magazine (2005)

last day of school
the crack of a baseball bat
outside the open window

……………… by Randy Brooks, from School’s Out (Press Here, 1999)

crack of the bat
the outfielder circles under
the full moon

The beetle I righted
flies straight into
a cobweb

……………… by George Swede – from Almost Unseen
“crack of the bat” – Baseball Haiku (2007)

first red leaves
i swing late
on a change-up

………….. by ed markowski