Saturday, March 31, 2007

The American Pastime

The LA Times has got an op-ed piece on a book coming out tomorrow called Baseball Haiku. Which seems so obvious, once you think about it. I mean, most guys calling a ballgame actually speak in haikus. ("Two out, one man on,/Ninth inning, one-run ballgame./The stretch, the pitch, it's...") It's an artform that's tailor made for the sport, kind of like rap and basketball.

Anyway, they give a bunch of excerpts, including the first baseball haiku ever written, by the inventor of modern Japanese haiku (and "mad-for-the-game left-handed prep school catcher"), Masaoka Shiki, back in 1890. (That's eighteen-ninety.):

spring breeze
this grassy field makes me
want to play catch

Here's one I came up with on the fly:

lazy beads of sweat
the autumn sun hanging low
time for one more cut

Any amateur poets and baseball fans who want to take a stab at one, leave it in the comments. I'll send a copy of the book to the best one. (Wackipedia definition of a haiku here.)

Posted by Judah in:  Arts & Letters   

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