Bruce Kennedy 1957

Bruce Kennedy was born December 29, 1957, in Toledo, Ohio, raised in the suburbs of northern New Jersey, and now lives in Brooklyn. Besides baseball and haiku, his interests include backpacking, photography, and zen. He is a practicing Buddhist.

He writes: “The first haiku I came upon were quoted in Alan Watts’ book The Way of Zen, which I read as a sophomore in high school. My high school and town libraries were pretty good and I was able to read R. H. Blyth’s books, Harold G. Henderson, and a translation of Bash’s Monkey’s Raincoat. My English teacher even did a class on haiku. I wrote my first haiku as a junior in high school about an inchworm in my backyard. Midway through college I began to write and publish haiku in earnest, and was briefly editor of the Haiku Society of America’s magazine Frogpond my senior year.

“As for baseball, I played right field in little league. I threw and batted right-handed and was not very good. I’m not sure I even finished the season. This is ironic because my grandfather’s life was baseball. He ran an American Legion team in Western Pennsylvania for twenty-six years, leading his team to the state playoffs thirteen times and winning seven. He helped several miners’ children get baseball scholarships to college, and was a scout with the Detroit Tigers. He was so beloved that in 2003 over one hundred of his former players held a banquet in his honor and rededicated a local ballpark in his name. I’ve been a Mets fan since I moved to Brooklyn. This haiku was written at the KeySpan stadium in Coney Island, home of the Mets’ triple-A team, The Cyclones.”

 

 

blue sky

I buy a ticket

to a minor league game