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 Fairview 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 bad love affair in Texas and discovered haiku in 1962 in a book he found at the library at Rutgers University-Camden. His first published haiku appeared in American Haiku magazine in 1963, and he wrote thousands, many unpublished, during his 20-plus-year career. 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".

Virgilio experimented with the haiku form, trying several innovations that other American haiku poets were exploring, including dropping the traditional 5-7-5 syllable count in favor of shorter forms. He sometimes 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.

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