BASEBALL & HAIKU BOOK LIST

Angell, Roger. Once More Around the Park: A Baseball Reader. New York: Ballantine Books, 1991. A prose writer with the haiku spirit, Angell knows how to get into the heart of baseball not only by getting to understand the players, but through the vividly evoked action of the games, their settings, and even the players’ equipment—there is an essay about the ball itself. This and his Game Time: A Baseball Companion (2003) bring together some of his best work.

 

Arima Akito. Einstein’s Century: Akito Arima’s Haiku, translations by Emiko Miyashita & Lee Gurga. Decatur, Illinois: Brooks Books, 2001. Fine translations along with valuable introductions by William J. Higginson and the translators. No baseball haiku.

 

Beichman, Janine. Masaoka Shiki. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982. Best book in English on Shiki. Includes a discussion of one of his baseball tanka, but does not mention his baseball haiku.

 

Blyth, R. H. Haiku. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1949–52. 4 vols. No baseball in this or his other books.

———. A History of Haiku. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1963–64. 2 vols.

———. Japanese Life and Character in Senryu. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1960.

 

Brooks, Randy M., and Lee Gurga, eds. Midwest Haiku Anthology. Decatur, Illinois: High/Coo Press (now Brooks Books), 1992.

 

Dickson, Paul. The Dickson Baseball Dictionary. New York: Facts on File, 1989. A valuable resource for the baseball writer in any genre and for the player or fan who wants to know the game’s terminology and how it’s been used through the years.

 

Hall, Donald. Fathers Playing Catch with Sons: Essays on Sport [Mostly Baseball]. New York: North Point Press, 1985. The poet with the lean and up-close prose about baseball. Has interesting history of writings on the game: prose and poetry, fact and fiction.

 

Henderson, Harold G. An Introduction to Haiku. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1958.

 

Higginson, William J. Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1996. A rare example of an English-language saijiki, or haiku almanac, a type of book that is very common in Japan. Over one thousand haiku in twenty-five languages from around the world with English translations. Includes only two baseball haiku: David Elliott’s “Night game” and Bud Goodrich’s “Squeeze play,” which are also in this anthology. Has lists of season words for each season with examples of haiku using them. This and his The Haiku Seasons (1996) show how closely haiku and the seasons are connected.

 

Kacian, Jim, and Cor van den Heuvel, eds. Past Time. Winchester, Virginia: Red Moon Press, 1999. Thirty-one haiku poets each contributed one baseball haiku to this out-of-print chapbook, which, along with a companion chapbook Play Ball (baseball haiku by Cor van den Heuvel), was the inspiration for the present anthology.

 

Kat Kko. A Hidden Pond: Anthology of Modern Haiku, edited by K ko Kat, translated with commentary by Kko Kat and David Burleigh. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1997. Best collection of modern and contemporary Japanese haiku in English. Includes original Japanese and romaji (Romanized spelling of Japanese language) transliterations. Excellent translations and superb commentaries. No baseball haiku.

 

Kerouac, Jack. Book of Haikus, edited by Regina Weinreich. New York: Penguin, 2003. Kerouac was the first American to write a baseball haiku. This book includes not only his two baseball haiku, but nearly all the haiku (over five hundred) he ever wrote—good and bad. With a fine introduction by the editor.

 

Masaoka Shiki. Selected Poems, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Good translations. Has romaji transliterations, but not the original Japanese. Includes one of Shiki’s nine baseball haiku.

 

———. If Someone Asks…Masaoka Shiki’s Life and Haiku, translations by The Shiki-Kinen Museum English Volunteers. Matsuyama, Ehime: The Matsuyama Municipal Shiki-Kinen Museum, 2001. One hundred and sixteen of Shiki’s haiku in the original Japanese, with romanized versions, English translations, and commentaries. Includes two of his baseball haiku: “spring breeze–/ the green field / tempts me to play catch” and “lush grass / the baseball path / is white.”

 

Matsuyama Municipal Shiki-Kinen Museum. Shiki and Matsuyama. No author given. English edition edited and translated by Ruth S. McCreery. Matsuyama, Ehime: The Matsuyama Municipal Shiki-Kinen Museum, 1986. Contains what may be the first publication in a book of one of Shiki’s baseball haiku in English translation: “To be young! / Children gather / to hit a ball.”

 

Ozaki Hosai. Right Under the Big Sky, I Don’t Wear a Hat: The Haiku and Prose of Hsai Ozaki, translated by Hiroaki Sato. Berkeley, California: Stone Bridge Press, 1993. Great book by one of the most important modern free-form haiku poets. Outstanding translations.

 

Rielly, Edward J. “Baseball Haiku: Bash, the Babe, and the Great Japanese-American Trade,” in The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 2001, edited by William M. Simons. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2002. Pages 246–59. What baseball and haiku have in common. Superb, groundbreaking article on baseball haiku.

 

Ross, Bruce, ed. Haiku Moment: An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku. Boston, Rutland, Vermont, & Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1993. Widely representative collection of the conventional haiku mainstream. No baseball haiku.

 

Takaha Shugyo. Selected Haiku, edited and translated by Hoshino Tsunehiko and Adrian Pinnington with an introduction by Hoshino Tsunehiko. Tokyo: Furansudo, 2003. Takaha writes some of the very best contemporary Japanese haiku. They are presented here in splendid translations. No baseball haiku.

 

Swede, George, and Randy Brooks, eds. Global Haiku: Twenty-five Poets World-wide. Oakville, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York: Mosaic Press, 2000. Haiku by prominent English-language poets from around the world. Includes two baseball haiku: Bill Pauly’s “country field” and an early version of Cor van den Heuvel’s “the batter checks.”

 

Ueda, Makoto, ed. and trans. Modern Japanese Haiku: An Anthology. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976. Especially valuable for having the original Japanese, romaji transliterations, and literal translations for each word as well as decent literary translations. Has an important introduction that details the different schools of haiku after Shiki and how they determined the paths taken by modern Japanese haiku. It has one baseball haiku by Sait Sanki, which we quote here (in our translation) in Akimoto Fujio’s profile.

 

van den Heuvel, Cor, ed. The Haiku Anthology: Haiku and Senryu in English. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999. The celebrated third edition.

 

Whiting, Robert. The Meaning of Ichiro: The New Wave from Japan and the Transformation of Our National Pastime. New York: Warner Books, 2004. How Japanese baseball stars such as Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui playing in the American major leagues are helping to change baseball in the United States. This and Whiting’s earlier book You Gotta Have Wa (1989), which recounts the history and describes the spirit of Japanese baseball (while also detailing the role of American players in the Japanese majors), will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the similarities and differences between Japanese and American baseball.

 

Wong, Stephen. (With photographs by Susan Einstein). Smithsonian Baseball: Inside the World’s Finest Private Collections. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. The artifacts of the game preserved by collectors. From famous players’ equipment (gloves, balls, bats, uniforms, etc.) to baseball cards, vintage photographs, posters, awards, scorecards, and just about any object that can be connected to the game are presented here in beautifully designed photographic layouts and fascinatingly detailed text. The stuff of a haiku poet’s (or any baseball fan’s) dreams.

 

Yamaguchi Seishi. The Essence of Modern Haiku: 300 Poems by Seishi Yamaguchi, translated by Takashi Kodaira and Alfred Marks. Marietta, Florida: Mangajin, Inc., 1993. The translations are a bit stilted and padded to get the poems into the five-seven-five form in English, but the translators include literal translations of the key words in each haiku so readers can fashion their own translations. Also contains both the original Japanese and romaji transliterations. A valuable addition: Seishi’s own comments on each haiku with the date and circumstances that inspired them. Two of his baseball haiku (also in this book) are included.