Butterfly Dream: Moving Van Haiku by Cor van den Heuvel

English Original

falling leaves

a moving van

next door

At the Top of the Ferris Wheel, 2017

Cor van den Heuvel 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

樹葉飄落

一輛搬家車

停在隔壁

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

树叶飘落

一辆搬家车

停在隔壁

Bio Sketch 

Cor van den Heuvel (March 16, 1931 - September 12, 2024) authored hundreds of haiku and haibun, including one of the most controversial works of the 20th century, one-word haiku: tundra. In addition to more than a dozen collections, he edited or co-edited a number of influential anthologies, most notably three editions of The Haiku Anthology, as well as Baseball Haiku. He also won three Merit Book Awards from the Haiku Society of America, a World Haiku Achievement Award at the World Haiku Festival, and the Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Prize. 

Butterfly Dream: Outfield Haiku by Cor van den Heuvel

English Original

the ball sky-high

as the crack of the bat

reaches the outfield

Baseball Haiku, 2007

Cor van den Heuvel 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

棒球高飛

當球棒的爆裂聲

抵達外野

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

棒球高飞

当球棒的爆裂声

抵达外野

Bio Sketch 

Cor van den Heuvel (March 16, 1931 - September 12, 2024) authored hundreds of haiku and haibun, including one of the most controversial works of the 20th century, one-word haiku: tundra. In addition to more than a dozen collections, he edited or co-edited a number of influential anthologies, most notably three editions of The Haiku Anthology, as well as Baseball Haiku. He also won three Merit Book Awards from the Haiku Society of America, a World Haiku Achievement Award at the World Haiku Festival, and the Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Prize. 

Poetic Musings: Tundra Haiku by Cor van den Heuvel

                     tundra

The Window-Washer’s Pail , 1963

Cor van den Heuvel

Commentary: Cor van den Heuvel’s historical one-word haiku “tundra” stands out as unique with its image having a seasonal reference and its juxtaposition to the surrounding page. Tundra is a biome where tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra means “uplands, treeless mountain tract.” Cor van den Heuvel experimented with his much-debated poem “tundra”— written slightly below the center of a blank page in his 1963 book the window-washer’s pail. It is a two-syllable word. He candidly says of the poem “One may say that a one-word haiku is naming, but one could add that it is the exception that proves the rule. All haiku are descriptions except one-word haiku.”

In an interview with Carmen Sterba in the blog Troutswirl, van den Heuvel said:

It is what it is: a level or undulating plain characteristic of arctic or subarctic regions. The important things are to see it alone in the mind or in the middle of an otherwise blank page and to color it with a season, preferably spring when it is blowing forever with grasses, flowers, birds (with their nests and eggs), and insects; or in winter when it is covered with endless drifted snow. To see the vastness of it spreading out from the word across the page and across the world. And to hear the sound of it. The word. 7

He commented elsewhere further on the form as a whole:

I began to think of one-image and one-line haiku as a part of my approach to haiku. There is almost always something else in the experience of the reader that will resonate, if only sub- consciously, with a single image—if that image is striking and evocative enough. One may think of it as an invisible metaphor. 8 

-- excerpted from To the Lighthouse: Experimentation with One-Word Haiku by Pravat Kumar Padhy

Biting NOT Barking: Honored Dead Haiku by Cor van den Heuvel

English Original

after the speeches

the honored dead return

to their silence

Dark, 1982

Cor van den Heuvel 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

演講結束後

褒揚的死者回到

他們的沉默

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

演讲结束后

褒扬的死者回到

他们的沉默

Bio Sketch

Cor van den Heuvel (March 16, 1931 - September 12, 2024) authored hundreds of haiku and haibun, including one of the most controversial works of the 20th century, one-word haiku: tundra. In addition to more than a dozen collections, he edited or co-edited a number of influential anthologies, most notably three editions of The Haiku Anthology, as well as Baseball Haiku. He also won three Merit Book Awards from the Haiku Society of America, a World Haiku Achievement Award at the World Haiku Festival, and the Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Prize.

Butterfly Dream: Tundra Haiku by Cor van den Heuvel

English Original

                     tundra

The Window-Washer’s Pail , 1963

Cor van den Heuvel 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

                    苔原

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

                   苔原

Bio Sketch 

Cor van den Heuvel (March 16, 1931 - September 12, 2024) authored hundreds of haiku and haibun, including one of the most controversial works of the 20th century, one-word haiku: tundra. In addition to more than a dozen collections, he edited or co-edited a number of influential anthologies, most notably three editions of The Haiku Anthology, as well as Baseball Haiku. He also won three Merit Book Awards from the Haiku Society of America, a World Haiku Achievement Award at the World Haiku Festival, and the Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Prize.