Nicholas Anthony Virgilio was an internationally recognized haiku poet who is credited with helping to popularize the Japanese style of poetry in the United States.
14 Facts About Nick Virgilio
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Nick Virgilio was born in Camden, New Jersey on June 28,1928, the first of three sons of Anthony Nick Virgilio, an accomplished violinist, and Rose Alemi, a seamstress.
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Nick Virgilio grew up in the city's Fairview section, where he lived much of his life.
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Nick Virgilio 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.
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Nick Virgilio moved to Texas in the late 1950s to become a sports broadcaster.
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Nick 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.
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Nick Virgilio's first published haiku appeared in American Haiku magazine in 1963, and he wrote thousands, many unpublished, during his 20-plus-year career.
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Nick Virgilio is quoted by haiku author and book editor Cor van den Heuvel as saying he wrote haiku "to get in touch with the real".
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Nick Virgilio sometimes included rhyme in his haiku along with the gritty reality of urban America.
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Nick Virgilio became well known after a review on National Public Radio, and appeared often on that network as a guest commentator.
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Nick Virgilio was a member of Camden's Sacred Heart Church and helped to found the Walt Whitman Center for the Arts and Humanities, where he served as its artistic director and poet-in-residence.
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Nick 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.
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Until his death, Nick Virgilio had a program on WKDN-FM, a radio station in Camden, NJ.
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Nick Virgilio's papers are housed at the Paul Robeson Library at Rutgers University-Camden.