Timeline Of Nick’s Life In Poetry
There are poets and visionaries—souls who write to reveal the truth hidden in the ordinary,
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New Jersey’s Camden. A city that had been a titan of shipbuilding and industry, more recently has endured great hardships. While it may seem like a place of suffering to others, Nick Virgilio saw it as his home, muse, and pulse.
In addition to being exquisite poems, his very introspective haiku were live representations of the Camden poetry scene, an urban setting that produced some of the most profoundly moving and spiritually profound haiku in American history. Nick used his soul as much as his eyes to see the city. Its alleys, its solitude, its pain, its grace—he gave them voice. Like Walt Whitman (whose tomb is near where Virgilio was buried), Virgilio drew inspiration and strength from this great American city.
And in doing so, he offered readers a way to explore haiku’s role in our community—not just as art, but as healing, as witness, as hope. In this post, we’ll dive deep into how Camden shaped Nick’s creative world and how his haiku continues to reflect the soul of the city that raised him.
When Nick Virgilio was born in 1928, Camden was a city known for its industry, working-class residents, and close-knit communities. The sounds of the streets, including the voices of factory workers, church bells, and the bustle of everyday life, influenced his formative years. For Nick, this was poetry in action, not background noise.
His observations of Camden life became ingrained in his poetry as he grew older, serving as the emotional foundation for his haiku. His art was inspired by the faces of individuals he knew, brick row houses, and vacant lots rather than by abstract landscapes or far-off mountains.
The history of Camden haiku began with these events, and Nick’s haiku acted as a mirror reflecting the city’s soul, capturing both its grief and its capacity for recovery.
In 1964, tragedy struck when Nick’s younger brother Larry was killed in Vietnam. That loss became a catalyst for Nick’s work—he wrote haiku with deep emotional weight, capturing sorrow in just a few carefully chosen words. It was his way of dealing with loss and trauma. Camden, too, was changing. As the city faced economic decline and increasing poverty, Nick remained steadfast.
He walked its streets, notebook in hand, turning the city’s challenges into lines of hope and mourning. See how the city shaped his creativity, both in tone and subject. Where others saw ruin, Nick saw the human spirit enduring.
In many ways, Camden’s struggles gave Nick a lens for universal emotions: grief, loneliness, and the bittersweet beauty of everyday life. His haiku gave dignity to the forgotten and voice to the voiceless—a quiet form of urban poetry influence that resonates even today.
Haiku traditionally focuses on nature and the seasons. But Nick redefined the form. He gave haiku an urban heartbeat and showed how this ancient Japanese form could thrive in an American city. He saw beauty in broken sidewalks, sorrow in boarded windows, and life in the smallest of city moments.
His work opened a new door for the Camden poetry scene, encouraging poets to find poetry not just in cherry blossoms, but in train stations, streetlights, and urban decay. His influence taught us how to explore haiku’s role in our community, not just as a form of self-expression, but as a tool for documenting collective experience. Today, local poets continue to draw inspiration from Nick’s approach—telling their own Camden stories, shaped by the very streets that shaped his.
Even though Nick died in 1989, his legacy endures. Indeed, it is still thriving. Living examples of his idea are groups such as the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association (NVHA), which is headquartered at the Writers House on Camden’s Waterfront South. People of all ages can write, share, and develop here through workshops, open mics, and youth activities.
This work is vital—learn how we carry Nick’s vision forward by providing spaces where poetry can be both personal and communal. It also means inviting everyone, especially young people, to see that their voice matters, their experiences matter, and their city is worth writing about.
If you’ve never visited, this is your invitation to come and join a local poetry celebration. Feel the magic of spoken word echoing through old church walls. Watch how haiku still brings strangers together, just as it did in Nick’s time.
So why, decades later, does Nick’s work still have a profound emotional impact on us? It is because he never used his haiku to flaunt his wit or strictly follow form. Rather, he spoke with emotional sincerity. He made it acceptable to have strong emotions, to grieve publicly, and to pay attention to what others might have missed. Nick’s work urges us to slow down—to stop for a moment and allow it to wash over us—in a world that rushes too quickly.
More importantly, he gave Camden something powerful: a poetic legacy rooted in everyday life. His haiku remind us that every city has a soul, and every soul deserves to be seen. And as long as we write, read, and speak his words, Camden haiku history remains alive—still echoing, still healing.
Nick Virgilio didn’t just write about Camden—he belonged to Camden. And Camden belonged to him. His haiku captured the soul of a city often misunderstood, turning everyday sights and personal grief into sacred art. Today, through the work of NVHA and the vibrant Camden poetry scene, his legacy thrives.
Local poets keep his flame burning, not by imitating his style, but by honoring his courage to feel, to speak, and to see beauty where others saw despair. Want to keep Nick’s spirit alive? Try your hand at timeless haiku. Witness haiku’s emotional power today. Read his work, write your own, and come stand where he stood. You’ll see what he saw: that poetry belongs to all of us—and that Camden will always have a place in the story of American haiku.
Let Nick’s legacy remind us that even in a concrete city, poetry can bloom—and hearts can grow.
There are poets and visionaries—souls who write to reveal the truth hidden in the ordinary,
New Jersey’s Camden. A city that had been a titan of shipbuilding and industry, more
Words that will reverberate over time were once written by a quiet voice amid the
Copyright © 2025 Nick VIrgilio Haiku Association. All rights reserved.
Alfred taught English to junior and senior high school students in New Jersey and Massachusetts prior to working for the municipal government of the City of Camden, New Jersey. He began working with the City of Camden Department of Planning & Development, Division of Housing Services, as a Cost Estimator for Property Improvement in 1984.
He spent the next thirty-eight years working in both the Division of Housing Services, and the Finance Department Bureau of Grants Management, helping the City administer state and federally funded affordable housing projects in Camden.
Alfred spent ten years working with the Bureau of Grants Management, where he reviewed and evaluated grant applications and proposals for funding from non-profit and for- profit housing developers. These agencies included St. Joseph’s Carpenter Society, Heart of Camden, Camden County OEO, Habitat for Humanity,
Camden Lutheran Housing, RPM Development and others. He also worked with social service agencies such as Dooley House, Respond Inc., Sikora House, Center for Family Services, and Volunteers of America, that applied for grant funding.
He also played a significant role in the planning and implementation of the Annual Consolidated Plan grant application submitted to the Department of Housing and Urban Development each year. The Bureau holds an annual grant funding seminar along with public meetings and technical assistance sessions concerning the C-Plan.
Working for the City of Camden Division of Housing Services Alfred also served as the coordinator of the federal funded HOPWA housing Program for 14 years.
HOPWA funds provided safe, affordable, secure, housing for persons with HIV/AIDS, by issuing housing vouchers to their participants. He managed the delivery of services to 80-90 clients a year, covering Camden, Burlington and Gloucester counties.
During his time working for the City of Camden Mr. Dansbury was a member of the CPAC Homeless Network Planning Committee, the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant Advisory Committee and United Neighbors of Whitman Park.
Outside of his work with the City of Camden, Alfred worked as an Adjunct Instructor of Reading Skills and Writing Skills at Camden County College, teaching at both the Camden and Blackwood campuses. In 2022 Alfred published,
“The Strength of Courage” a novel he embarked on as a graduate student in Rowan University’s M.A. in Writing program in 2014-2018.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and Journalism from Rutgers University, a Master’s of Arts degree in Business Administration from Eastern University, a Master’s of Arts in Education from Eastern Michigan University and a Master’s of Arts in Writing from Rowan University.