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
抵達外場
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
棒球高飞
当球棒的爆裂声
抵达外场
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.
Visually evocative L1 sets the scene and mood while Ls 2&3 show the time interval, speed and force of the ball hit by the batter.
ReplyDeleteAnd the use of "crack" effectively adds to the force and power of the ball when it was hit to be essentially faster than the speed of sound.