This poet was born on March 6, 1931, in Biddeford, Maine, and grew up in Maine and New Hampshire. He discovered haiku in San Francisco in 1958 when he overheard Gary Snyder talking about short poems at a Sunday gathering of the Robert Duncan/Jack Spicer poetry group in North Beach. Back in Maine the following spring, he began writing haiku himself and began reading them at the Cafe Zen, a Beat-style coffee house in Ogunquit. In the fall, he moved to Boston to become the house poet at the Salamander Cafe. The summer of 1960 he worked on a fishing trawler out of Province-town during the day and read his haiku in a bar at night. He then went to New York where he was involved with the poetry readings at the Tenth Street Coffee House. He self-published his first chapbook of haiku in 1961. The Haiku Anthology, which he has edited through three editions, first appeared in 1974. A selection of his baseball haiku, Play Ball, was published in 1999 by Red Moon Press. In Matsuyama in 2002, he was awarded the Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Prize. (The award included a medal decorated with a baseball and crossed baseball bats.) Van den Heuvel was known as “Dutchy” when he played catcher in the late 1940s for the Comets, a sandlot team in Dover, New Hampshire. He throws and bats right-handed.
first warm day
fitting my fingers into the mitt
pounding the pocket
lingering snow
the game of catch continues
into evening
a spring breeze
flutters the notice
for baseball tryouts
geese flying north
the pitcher stops his windup
to watch
through the blue sky
the tape-wrapped baseball trails
a black streamer
baseball cards
spread out on the bed
April rain
downpour
windswept spray blows across
the outfield
biking to the field
under a cloudless sky
my glove on the handlebars
under the lights
hitting it out of the park
and into the night
dispute at second base
the catcher lets some dirt
run through his fingers
the batter checks
the placement of his feet
“Strike One!”
the ball sky-high
as the crack of the bat
reaches the outfield
after the grand slam
the umpire busy
with his whisk broom
conference on the mound
the pitcher looks down
at the ball in his hand
summer afternoon
the long fly ball to center field
takes its time
changing pitchers
the runner on first looks up
at a passing cloud
long day
the right fielder is playing
with a dog
light rain
a line drive knocks up dust
between second and third
the infield chatter
floats out to deep center
summer breeze
in the outfield’s
late-afternoon shadows
the coolness of my glove
perfect game, end of seven
in the dugout the pitcher
sits alone
hot day
listening to the ball game
while washing the car
Ted hits another homer
a seagull high over right field
gets out of the way
9th inning
moths fly around
the ballpark lights
stolen base
the bench does its own
wave
the catcher cocks his arm
halfway to third, the runner
—hesitates
pitcher and catcher
head for the dugout
the batter stares at his bat
after the game
a full moon rises over
the left field fence
cold day
the traded catcher’s
empty locker
autumn leaves
scatter across the infield
the pitcher blows on his fingers
a baseball
in the tied catcher’s mitt
snow deepens
March thaw
the sounds of a game of catch
from the driveway
AT THE BALLPARK
early morning
cool shadows in the stands
of the small ballfield
spring training
an old timer plays pepper
with three rookies
college ballpark
fungoes one after another
into the blue sky
autumn dusk
an empty baseball field
in the rain