Ed Markowski, the son of a steel-worker father and a kindergarten-teaching Italian mother, was born April 14, 1954, in a hospital in Detroit about a mile from Tiger Stadium. He first learned about haiku in 1967 when his older sister brought a book home called The Four Seasons (1958). Published by The Peter Pauper Press, it was a small book of Japanese haiku in seventeen-syllable English translations by Peter Beilenson. Markowski, impressed by haiku’s “eloquent simplicity,” treasured the book. He still has it.
He didn’t try writing haiku until 1989, when he wrote fifty-five of them “still under the illusion of the seventeen-syllable rule.” After discovering William J. Higginson’s The Haiku Handbook (1985) a short time later, he began to write with a freer and more knowledgeable hand. His first published haiku appeared in bottle rockets in 2001. His first chapbook, Pop-Up, came out in 2004 in vince tripi’s Pinchbook series.
Markowski’s other interests include family (he and his wife, Laurice, have a daughter and grandson), cooking, film, music, basketball, politics, psychology, Buddhism, cats, and especially baseball. He pitched for the St. Sylvester Darts in 1967 and 1968: “In ’68, I went 13 & 2. From 1985 to ’87 I played right field for, and managed, a slow-pitch team of drunks and misfits called The Cuban Heels. I throw right, and switch hit.”
His all-time favorite team is the ’76 Tigers of Mark Fidrych and Ron Leflore. The “most memorable game” he ever attended: Denny McLain’s thirtieth win of the 1968 season. His favorite player ever: Luis Tiant.
winter reverie
the faint scent of bubblegum
on an old baseball card
spring snow…
in the empty garage
a boy works on his swing
sides chosen
the boy not chosen
lends me his glove
afternoon heat…
the lazy dip
of a palm ball
summer loneliness
dropping the pop-up
i toss to myself
distant thunder
the home run hitter
drops a bunt
rainy night
a hole in the radio
where a ballgame should be
73 dingers?
everytime i see his smile
on the Wheaties box
box scores
the taste
of a breakfast sausage
summer haze
i pick off
the invisible man on first
signs of autumn
his bunt dies
at the five yard line
another cold front…
i oil
my glove
hot stove league…
did ryan’s fastball
cast a shadow?
spring training…
flamingoes graze
on the mansion lawn
bases loaded
the rookie pitcher
blows a bubble
chattanooga…
the left fielder drifts
in the shadow of a mountain
Fourth of July…
the glow
of stadium lights
rising into thunderclouds
the umpire’s
right arm
late innings
the shortstop backpedals
into fireflies
night game in durango
all the stars
above the diamond
late september…
dry leaves rattle
on the chain-link backstop