the geese have gone― in the chilly twilight empty milkweed pods*
Cornelis A. van den Heuvel, a pioneering figure in the world of English-language haiku, passed peacefully away on September 12, 2024, at 93 in Long Island, New York.
Born in Biddeford, Maine, he spent most of his life living and working in New York City. He served in the United States Air Force during his college years at the University of New Hampshire and later received his M.A. in English Literature from NYU in 1968.
Cor worked most of his adult life as a layout editor at Newsweek magazine, but his true passion was haiku. He spent most of his free time writing, reading, and thinking about haiku poetry. Cor’s lifelong passion for haiku began in 1958 when he was introduced to it by the beat poet Gary Snyder in San Francisco. In the early 60s, he started printing his chapbooks of haiku.
In the 70s, he learned about and joined the Haiku Society of America, eventually serving as its President in 1978. He wrote and edited the first of three editions of the seminal “The Haiku Anthology,” which introduced countless readers to the beauty and simplicity of haiku. Over the years, he had several other books of haiku and related poetry published, with “Baseball Haiku” and “A Boy’s Seasons” being standout works. One of his poems was featured on a billboard in Times Square. His work as a poet, editor, and critic earned him numerous accolades, including Japan’s Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Prize in 2002.
Cor’s legacy lives on through his poetry, his editorial work, and the countless poets he mentored and inspired. He was truly one of the pillars of the American Haiku movement. He will be deeply missed.
*The Geese Have Gone, King's Road Press, Pointe-Claire, Quebec, 1992.
Awards and Other Honors:
The Haiku Society of America has given Van den Heuvel three Merit Book Awards for his haiku. He was the honorary curator of the American Haiku Archives at the California State Library in Sacramento for 1999-2000. He worked at Newsweek magazine in the layout department until he retired in 1988. He was the United States representative to the 1990 International Haiku Symposium in Matsuyama. At the World Haiku Festival held in London and Oxford in 2000, he received a World Haiku Achievement Award. In 2002, he was awarded The Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Awards in Matsuyama, for his writing and editing of haiku books. He has been described in The Alsop Review as "an intelligent and unflagging spokesperson for haiku".
Books Published:
Self-published seven chapbooks (all Chant Press, New York, NY): sun in skull (1961); a bag of marbles(1962); the window-washer's pail (1963); EO7 (or Christ should have carried a pearl-handled revolver) (1964); Bang! You're Dead (1969); dark (1982); and Puddles (1990); The Geese Have Gone - King's Road Press, Pointe-Claire, Quebec, 1992; A Boy's Seasons: Haibun Memoirs - Single Island Press, Portsmouth, NH (2010); Splashes (House of Haiku Books, North Carolina: 2023).
Selected Work
late February
stuck to the tree, a snowball
in the strike zone
the white hydrangeas
have all turned shades of blue
a stranger at the door
spring rain
a sprig of plum blossom
in my shot glass
city street
the darkness inside
the snow-covered cars
a drop of water
floats by the canoe
on a curled leaf
a carousel horse
alone in the museum
winter evening
old baseball card
the blue of the sky
above the pitcher’s head
deep snow
the amusement park lit
by a single bulb
beach towels
on the porch railing
sea breeze
the cool breeze
somewhere in the lush garden
finds the windchimes
"Experimentation with One-Word Haiku” by Pravat Kumar Padhy Frogpond 45:3, 2022, 116-123 Arguably, the most famous one-word haiku of all time: tundra 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.”
