Nick Virgilio

Nicholas Anthony Virgilio (June 28, 1928–January 3, 1989) was an internationally recognized haiku poet who is credited with helping to popularize the Japanese style of poetry in the United States.

Virgilio was born in Camden, New Jersey on June 28, 1928, the first of three sons of Anthony Virgilio, an accomplished violinist, and Rose Alemi, a seamstress, and grew up in that city's Fairwiew section, where he lived much of his life.

He graduated from Camden High School, served in the Navy during World War II, received a bachelor of arts degree from Temple University in Philadelphia, and began his career as a radio announcer and, as "Nickaphonic Nick", worked as a disc jockey with Philadelphia's Jerry Blavat. He moved to Texas in the late 1950s to become a sports broadcaster.

Virgilio moved back to Camden following a devastating love affair in Texas ^[1] and discovered haiku in 1962 in a book at the library at the Camden campus of Rutgers University. His first published haiku appeared in The American Haiku magazine in 1963, and he wrote thousands, many unpublished, during his 20-plus-year career.^[2] The death of his youngest brother Larry in the Vietnam War inspired some poignant and powerful haiku, and made his reputation as a haiku elegist. He is quoted by haiku author and book editor Cor van den Heuvel as saying he wrote haiku "to get in touch with the real".^[3]

my dead brother...

hearing his laugh

in my laughter

Virgilio experimented with the haiku form, trying several innovations that were adopted by many other American haiku poets, including dropping the traditional 5-7-5 syllable count^{[citation needed]} in favor of shorter forms. He included rhyme in his haiku along with the gritty reality of urban America. A collection of his selected haiku was published in 1985. The second (expanded) edition appeared just months before his death and has been called one of the most influential single-author books in English-language haiku^{[citation needed]}.

Virgilio became well known after a review on National Public Radio, and appeared often on that network as a guest commentator. He was a member of Camden's Sacred Heart Church and helped to found the Walt Whitman Center for the Arts and Humanities (now the Walt Whitman Arts Center), where he also served as its artistic director and poet-in-residence. Virgilio was a long-standing member of the Haiku Society of America and was the co-director of the First International Haiku Festival, held in 1971 in Philadelphia.^[4]

Until his death, Virgilio had a program on WKDN-FM, a radio station in Camden, NJ.

He died on January 3, 1989 of a heart attack while taping an interview about haiku for the CBS News Nightwatch television program.^[5] He is buried at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden.^[6] His well-known "Lily" haiku is engraved upon his gravestone:

lily:

out of the water . . .

out of itself

Notes

1. ^ A Life of the Poet, reprinted from the 1991 Nicholas Virgilio Memorial Book by Kathleen O'Toole and Dwight Wilson
2. ^ Nick Virgilio's Uncollected Haiku in the Nick Virgilio Poetry Project
3. ^ Van den Heuvel, Cor (editor). The Haiku Anthology, third edition. Norton, 1999. ISBN 0393321185. p.xi
4. ^ Trumbull, Charles. The American Haiku Movement. Part I: Haiku in English in Modern Haiku 36:3, Autumn 2005
5. ^ "Nick Virgilio, 60, Poet Known for His Haiku", http://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/05/obituaries/nick-virgilio-60-poet-known-for-his-haiku.html
6. ^ Campbell, Douglas A. "MEMORIAL DEDICATED TO CAMDEN POET FRIENDS OF NICK VIRGILIO RAISED MONEY FOR THE MONUMENT. YESTERDAY THEY READ HAIKU AT HIS GRAVE.", The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 24, 1991, p. B01. Accessed September 24, 2007. "Haiku, the poetry Nick Virgilio wrote, is filled with imagery. Yesterday at Camden's Harleigh Cemetery where, under heavy skies, a Virgilio memorial was dedicated by 100 friends, the images abounded."

External links

• The Nick Virgilio Poetry Project at Rutgers University Camden Campus
• Essay on Nick Virgilio by Rev. Michael Doyle, pastor of Sacred Heart Church, Camden, NJ
• Nicholas A. Virgilio Memorial Haiku Competition for Grades 7-12 - Haiku Society of America
• Nick Virgilio at Find a Grave

Persondata
Name	Virgilio, Nick
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Date of birth	1928
Place of birth
Date of death	1989
Place of death