Nick Virgilio

Nick Virgilio was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1928. He grew up with his two brothers, Anthony and Larry, in Camden city. When he got out of the Navy in 1948, which he had entered after finishing high school, Nick worked around the country as a radio announcer before returning to Camden in 1958.

In 1962 Virgilio discovered haiku when he came across a collection translated into English by Kenneth Yasuda, A Pepper Pod, at Rutgers University. He devoted his life from then on to haiku. He was always bombarding his friends, including his parish priest, Father Michael Doyle, with new haiku, often prefacing each one with the phrase, “What do you think of this one?” His book of poems, Selected Haiku, which was published in a second edition in 1988, was one of the most important books published by an American haiku poet. He died of a heart attack on January 3, 1989, while being interviewed by a CBS network TV show called “Nightwatch,” on which he was to discuss his favorite topic, haiku (adapted from Cor van den Heuvel, “Nick Virgilio and American Haiku: Creating Haiku and an Audience,” 1990).

Below is a photograph of himself that Virgilio would send along with promotional materials. The letter shown is an esoteric reply addressed to Clement Hoyt in a contentious early correspondence between the poet and editor, before they became friendly.