Sylvia Forges-Ryan writes, “My interest in baseball began in the fifth grade, when my classmate, Jack Nicholson, the actor, and I were taken to a Yankee doubleheader as a reward for being the top spellers in our class. Though I longed after that at many a recess to hit the ball over our schoolyard fence and score a home run, it never happened and I mostly had to content myself with watching others play, spending many summer evenings at local sandlot games.” Sylvia throws and bats right-handed. Long a fan of the New York Yankees, she once had a crush on Whitey Ford.
Born in New York City April 6, 1937, she grew up on the New Jersey Shore, in a town called Neptune City. She received both a BA and an MA in English Literature from Bucknell, and an MA in Liberal Studies, with an emphasis on writing and poetry, from Wesleyan.
In 1983, now living in Connecticut, she took an adult education class in haiku and wrote her first haiku. She soon began publishing in the haiku magazines. From 1991 through 1993 she was the editor of the Haiku Society of America’s Frogpond. Her haiku have won a number of awards, including the HSA’s Harold Henderson Award and The British Haiku Society’s R. H. Blyth Award. In 2003 she was invited to speak on haiku at the World Haiku Festival in The Netherlands. She has given haiku workshops in various venues, including The Insight Meditation Society and Harvard University. In 2002 she coauthored Take a Deep Breath: The Haiku Way to Inner Peace, published by Kodansha International and reprinted in Russia by Sophia Press.
waiting to bat
the hitter swats
a swarm of gnats
sandlot players
a mockingbird sings
the umpire’s call
rained out
the coos of pigeons echo
in the empty stadium