USA

  • Savich, Agnes Eva

    Agnes Eva Savich

    Born 1976 in Krakow, Poland
    Living in Austin, Texas, USA
    Agnes Eva Savich has been writing haiku since 2003. A featured Southwestern Haijin in Roadrunner Haiku Journal (2006), she continues to be published in haiku journals, and has an early collection of poetry, The Watcher: Poems (Cedar Leaf Press, 2009).
    https://agnesevasavich.wordpress.com
    Contact the poet

  • Schlaht, Albert

    Albert SchlahtAlbert Schlaht

    Born 1966 Ronan, Montana
    Residing in Missoula, Montana, USA

    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. is a Routing Analyst in Montana, where he earned his degree in Creative Writing 2000 from the University of Montana. He pens writings of a short nature, which have appeared in various journals. He has two books published, Schlaht Family History 2011, and Singers in the Skull 2014.


     

  • Speiss, Robert Clayton

    Robert Clayton SpeissRobert Clayton Spiess

    (16 October 1921 – 13 March 2002)

    “A true haiku is an experience experiencing itself.”

    (Speculations by Robert Spiess)

    Robert Spiess, editor of American Haiku and Modern Haiku was born on 16 October 1921 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  After graduation from high school, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, in 1939 but his plans were interrupted by World War II. He was drafted into the Army Air Force and trained as a cryptographer. Perhaps it was his war experience that helped determine the peaceful path he would follow thereafter. He earned his B.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin, majoring in Botany and English, and then received an M.S., with a major in Vocational Guidance.

    Robert became interested in haiku in the late 1930s, through early translations of Japanese haiku.

    In the late ’40s and early ’50s he acquired R.H. Blyth’s four volumes of Haiku, and from then on he became hooked on this poetic genre. Robert Spiess published his first haiku in 1949 in American Poetry Magazine, and he became a participating writer. In 1963, he purchased the premiere issue of American Haiku and two of his poems were published in the second issue. A few years later, he accepted the position of poetry editor for that journal.

    Robert Spiess’ first collection of haiku, The Heron's Legs, was published in 1966 by American Haiku in Platteville, Wisconsin and over the years he published ten more books. He was also the author of several articles and essays on haiku and his poems have been featured in numerous publications and anthologies. The premier issue of Modern Haiku was published in 1969, and ten of Robert's haiku appeared in the second issue. Within a few years, he was appointed associate editor of that journal. In 1977, he published the first of his "Speculations on Haiku" in Modern Haiku, and in 1978, he became that journal's editor and publisher until his death in 2002.

    Robert's countless contributions were integral to the evolution and success of English-language haiku and he was an instrumental mentor in the haiku careers of many contemporary haiku poets.

    Books Published:  

     

    • The Heron’s Legs (American Haiku, Platteville, Wisconsin, 1966);
    • The Turtle’s Ears (Wells Printing Co., Madison, Wisconsin, 1971);
    • Five Caribbean Haibun (Wells Printing Co., Madison, Wisconsin, 1972);
    • The Shape of Water (Modern Haiku Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1982);
    • The Bold Silverfish and Tall River Junction (Modern Haiku Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1986);
    • New and Selected Speculations on Haiku (Modern Haiku Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1988);
    • The Cottage of Wild Plum (Modern Haiku Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1991);
    • A Year’s Speculation on Haiku (Modern Haiku Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1995);
    • noddy (Modern Haiku Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1997);
    • noddy & the halfwit [with Lee Gurga] (Modern Haiku Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1999);
    • some sticks and pebbles (Modern Haiku Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 2001).

    Some awards and other honours: 

    • In 1988, Robert Spiess was awarded the Haiku Society of America's Special Recognition Award "for a profound, insightful book about haiku".
    • In 2000, in Matsuyama, Japan, Robert was presented with the first Shiki International Haiku Award for his achievement in disseminating and deepening the understanding of haiku in English-speaking countries.
    • From 2000-2001, Robert was Honorary Curator of the American Haiku Archives.

    Selected work: 

    among these willows:
         and breathing the light that falls
              from leaf to green leaf

    (The Heron's Legs, American Haiku, Platteville, Wisconsin, 1966)

    *

    A drive out of town —
    and best of all the billboard
    that a wind blew down

    (Modern Haiku Vol.5:1, 13, 1974)

    *

    Evening in the park
    — and the snow lodging also
    in the statue’s eyes

    (Modern Haiku Vol.6:1, 11, 1975)

    *

    A couch à la Freud, —
    curing souls of sex and things
    by which they’re annoyed

    (Modern Haiku Vol. 6:3, 21, 1975)

    *

    “Canoeing the Bend” [sequence]
    (Modern Haiku Vol.8:3, 12, 1977):

    canoeing the bend —
    a fox in the evening dusk
    mouses in a field


    canoeing the bend —
    a man throwing stones at coots
    turns away


    canoeing the bend —
    motionless, a short-eared owl
    watches from an oak


    canoeing the bend —
    on a sunny ledge of rock
    a rattler stirs


    canoeing the bend
    another bend ahead
    thank you


    canoeing the bend
    in a spit of April snow —
    warblers flying by

    *

    a     square
    of      water
    re f l e c t s
    the    moon

    (The Shape of Water, Modern Haiku Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1982)

    *

    ice cubes
        aging
            in each one's glass

    (The Bold Silverfish and Tall River Junction, Modern Haiku Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1986)

    *

    the field's evening fog—
       quietly the hound comes
          to fetch me home

    (The Cottage of Wild Plum, Modern Haiku Press, Madison, 1991); Frogpond 14:4 (1991)

    *

    wild roses . . .
    tarrying beside one
         touched by time

    (From a Kind Neighbor, Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology 1997)

    *

    walking for my heart...
        so many little karmas
            beneath a step

    (some sticks and pebbles, Modern Haiku Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 2001)

    Some essays:

    • “Multiple-sense Imagery in Haiku”, Modern Haiku Vol.2:1, 15–16, 1970
    • “Notes on Writing Haibun”, Modern Haiku Vol.3:1, 11, 1972 
    • “The Problem of Originality in Haiku”, Modern Haiku Vol.4:2, 30–34, 1973
    • “The Problem of Beauty in Haiku”, Modern Haiku Vol.6:3, 30–32, 1975
    • “The Problem of the Ordinary in Haiku”, Modern Haiku Vol.7:2, 16–17, 1976
      “A Comparison of Characteristics of English Language Haiku and Senryu”, Modern Haiku Vol.7:3, 30–31, 1976
    • “The Problem of Explanation and Interpretation in American Haiku”, Modern Haiku Vol.7:3, 15–17, 1976
    • “A Few Notes on the Now-Moment”, Modern Haiku Vol.8:2, 38, 1977
    • “The Problem of Reading Haiku”, Modern Haiku Vol.8:1, 30–34, 1977
      “Toward a Theory of Fundamental Balance in Haiku”, Modern Haiku Vol.8:1, 39–40, 1977

                     

    Sources:

    http://www.modernhaiku.org/issue33-3/spiessautobiography.html
    http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/poet-details/?IDclient=114
    http://www.haikupoet.com/definitions/speculations.html
    http://www.modernhaiku.org/MH-Archive/authorsO-S.html#s
    http://www.modernhaiku.org/essays/BrooksSpiessHaiku.html
    Wikipedia (Russian)
    An Interview with Robert Spiess by Michael Dylan Welch at (Modern Haiku Vol.33:3, Autumn 2002)

     

  • Stevens, Mary

    Mary StevensMary Stevens

    Born 1965 in USA
    Living at present: Hurley, NY USA

    A member of HSA since 2003, Mary Stevens co-judged with John Stevenson the 2013 Nicholas Virgilio Haiku Contest. At the 2015 Haiku North America in Schenectady, NY, she presented “The Cicada’s Voice: How Wabi Sabi Can Teach Us How to Live.


     

  • Stevenson, John

    John StevensonJohn Stevenson

    Born 1948 in Ithaca, New York, USA
    Living in Nassau, New York, USA
    The Heron's Nest website 
    Upstate Dim Sum website 
    Contact the poet 

    Read the haiku 

  • Tennison, Michelle

    Michelle TennisonMichelle Tennison

    Born 1963 in Cumberland, Maryland USA
    Living in Blackwood, New Jersey USA

    Contact the poet

  • Terrell, Andrew

    Andrew TerrellAndrew Terrell

    Born: USA 1991
    Living in: Dharug Country
    Bio: Andrew Terrell was born and raised in the Skagit Valley.
    Site: https://www.instagram.com/andrew_terrell_art/


  • Thunell, Carrie Ann

    Carrie Ann Thunell

    Born 1958 in USA.

    Carrie Ann (CAT) Thunell has had poetry and/or art published in over 75 print magazines.

    She was editor of the Nisqually Delta Review, which ran for 3 years. Her haiga has been on Simply Haiku, and Haigaonline. Ms Thunell has been published in several of Robert Epstein’s haiku anthologies.


     

     

  • Tice, Richard

    Richard Tice

    Born in the U.S.A.; currently resides in Kent, Washington, U.S.A.
    Richard Tice started writing haiku and essays on the form in the 1970s while teaching English in Japan. In the ‘80s he edited Dragonfly: East/West Haiku Quarterly. He has translated more than 200 Japanese haiku. Two collections of his haiku, Station Stop and Familiar and Foreign, have been published.


     

  • Tico, Tom

    Tom TicoTom Tico

    (15 May 1942 – 4 February 2016)

    Thomas Michael Tico was born on 15 May 1942 in San Francisco, California and he lived nearly all his life in the city he loved. Tom Tico’s first haiku appeared in American Haiku in 1966. And since then his poems have been steadily published in various haiku magazines and in a number of anthologies: Cor van den Heuvel’s “The Haiku Anthology”, Bruce Ross’s “Haiku Moment”, and the “San Francisco Haiku Anthology”.  Tom also had numerous essays published, mainly in Frogpond, Modern Haiku and other haiku journals. In 1989 Tom Tico was a co-judge to the “1989 Gerald Brady Senryu Awards”. In 1992, he co-edited The San Francisco Haiku Anthology (Smythe-Waithe Press, 1992).

    Committed to living an artistic life, Tom Tico dedicated his life to his passion as a haiku poet. In the early 70's, he determined conventional employment was no longer for him. He resigned from his work with the US Postal Service, and dedicated his time and energy for the remainder of his life to creative and personally satisfying pursuits. While his commitment to this path was not without challenges, Tom never wavered from his absolute certainty that he was living his life the way he needed to in order to be true to himself.

    In 1998 Tom self-published a book "Spring Morning Sun". In the ‘Introduction’ to the book he wrote: “From 1985 through 1995 I spent over seven years in a state of homelessness, sleeping in a redwood forest in Golden Gate Park.”  His experience from those years shaped his haiku significantly. Tom’s life just comes through in his haiku:

    At the soup kitchen,
       a faded reproduction
          of The Last Supper

    In my sleeping bag
       in a fetal position;
          this cold autumn night

    Later in his life, Tom developed a passion for photography, and applied the same lens evident in many of his haiku - the beauty of the marriage between the natural and the urban environment.

    Tom loved to walk, which gave him the opportunity to find inspiration for his haiku or his photography. Movies and books were two of Tom's other life-long enjoyments. He had an extraordinary knowledge of movies, directors, actors and authors.

    Tom Tico passed away peacefully on 4 February 2016 due to a degenerative lung disease. On the last night of his life, he reflected with contentment on his life "as an outsider", the significance of being able to take satisfaction in the character of his children, and his readiness for whatever came next. Tom is survived by his brother, Edward Tico; children: Christopher, Alexander, Minerva and Nathanael Tico; daughters-in-law: Wendy, Kristin and Rebecca; and grandchildren: Jonathan, Alex, Jordan, Morgan, Reeva, Adrian, Gabriella, and Sawyer.

    Some publications:

    • Tico, Tom. “Personification” [workshop]. Frogpond 21.1 (1998);
    • Tico, Tom. “The Imaginative Haiku: Readings by Tom Tico” [workshop]. Frogpond 20.1 (1999);
    • Tico, Tom. “Affinities: Thoreau and the Japanese Haiku Poets” [workshop]. Frogpond 22.3 (1999);
    • Tico, Tom. “Like a Fine Wine” [workshop]. Frogpond 22.2 (1999);
    • Tico, Tom. “The Dark Side of Kali” [workshop]. Frogpond 22.1 (1999);
    • Tico, Tom. “The Music of Haiku” [workshop]. Frogpond 24.2 (2001);
    • Tico, Tom. “The Sad, Lonely Poetry of the City” [workshop]. Frogpond 20.3 (12/1/1997);
    • Tico, Tom. “Endlessness in a Small Frame: Readings” [workshop]. Frogpond 18.2 (summer 1995);
    • Tico, Tom. “A Handful of Shadows, Readings” [workshop]. Frogpond 18.4 (winter 1995);
    • Tico, Tom. “Tassajara Zen Center” [sequence [5]]. Modern Haiku 10:1 (Winter–Spring 1979);
    • Tico, Tom. “A Reading of Marjory Bates Pratt” [workshop]. Modern Haiku 13:1 (Winter–Spring 1982);
    • Tico, Tom. “Scarecrow Reading” [workshop]. Modern Haiku 13:2 (Summer 1982);
    • Tico, Tom. “The Sun the Moon and the Stars: A Reading of Foster Jewell” [workshop]. Modern Haiku 14:2 (Summer 1983);
    • Tico, Tom. “The Peach-Blossom Spring [O Southard]” [workshop]. Modern Haiku 14:3 (Fall 1983);
    • Tico, Tom. “River and Mountain: A Reading of Larry Gates” [workshop [10]]. Modern Haiku 15:1 (Winter- Spring 1984);
    • Tom Tico, "The Spice of Life", Frogpond 30:1 (winter 2007).

    In anthologies:

    • Cor van den Heuvel, editor. The Haiku Anthology: English Language Haiku by Contemporary American and Canadian Poets (1974).
    • Cor van den Heuvel, editor. The Haiku Anthology: Haiku and Senryu in English (revised [2nd] edition, 1986), and (expanded [3rd] edition, 1999).
    • Bruce Ross, ed., Haiku Moment (1993)

    Selected haiku: 

    autumn evening . . .
       a page of the old book
          separates from the spine

    (Honorable Mention: 1999 Harold G. Henderson Memorial Award)

    *
    First days of summer . . .
          already the leaves gather
                beneath the sycamores

    (Honorable Mention: 1990 Harold G. Henderson Memorial Award)

    *

    A wisp of spring cloud
      drifting apart from the rest. . . .
         slowly evaporates.

    (“The Haiku Anthology Revised Edition”, Simon and Schuster, 1986, pg. 242)

    *

    old plum trees:
       how quickly the one dies
          after the other

    (Modern Haiku 38:3, autumn 2007)

    *

    at the burial
    one of the black umbrellas
    breaks down

    (Modern Haiku 41:3, autumn 2010)

    *

    in this little part
    of the solar system
          dust motes

    (Frogpond 37:3, Autumn 2014)

    *

    Sandpipers
    running along the glassy beach
    on top of themselves


    a windless morning
    and still the plum blossoms
    flutter to the ground


    Dusk …
    the whole forest dark
    except for the lilies


    Engulfing
    the purple rhododendrons
    shadows of evening


    a morning fog:
    again and again the caw
    of an unseen crow


    On every step
    of the old stone stairway –
    autumn leaves

    (Haiku Moment: An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku, Tuttle Publishing, 1993) edited by Bruce Ross

    *

    As day breaks...
       the lightness of her breath
           on my back

    (“The Haiku Anthology”, ed. by Cor van den Heuvel, Norton 1999, pg.222)

    *

    Sitting in the sun
        in the middle of the plants
            that I just watered

    (Woodnotes 25, 1995)

    *

    Beside the tenement
    a box of broken glass
    filled with autumn sun


    Mud-puddle water
    going this way and that--
    spring wind


    After gazing at stars . . .
    now, I adjust to the rocks
    under my sleeping bag


    Nothing to bring her . . .
    except flowers from the gardens
    all along the way


    Shortening the line
    at the soup kitchen--
    the first fall rain


    The old carving tree . . .
    a new pair of initials
    and the first young leaves


    The white butterfly
    just the touch of my shadow
    and it flies away

    ("Spring Morning Sun" (1998)

    *

    Misting across
    the cold bright stars -
    my own breath

    (Published in San Francisco Chronicle on Feb. 28, 2016)

    This profile was created with the kind help of Charles Trumbull, Peggy Mather, John Stevenson and Michael Dylan Welch.

    And this is Tom’s tribute written by his children at the San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 28, 2016:

    http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sfgate/obituary.aspx?n=thomas-tico&pid=177872280

    Sources:

     

    foghorns…
    the vague shapes
    of familiar trees

     

    beneath purple leaves
    the unpicked fruit
    stains the sidewalk

     

    after a long stretch of stargazing   first light

     

    around the corner
    from the swank nursing home
    one for the poor

     

    Valentine’s Day:
    my heart favors
    the plum blossoms

     

    in this little part
    of the solar system
          dust motes

     

    loosening        
        the hard and fast lines
            fog

     

    following the lead my elongated shadow

     

    cold park:
    so many trees
    skeletonized

     

    emphysema --
    it could be the name
    of an exotic femme fatale
    who ends up leaving you
    breathless

     

    Easter morning
    rising later
    than usual

     

    angels’ trumpets
    yet here and there
    a bit of rust

     

    insomnia…
    getting to know
    the night

     

    the chiaroscuro of crows and morning mist

     

    intermittent rain the long and the short of it

     

    making the most
    of the broken-down fence
            nasturtiums

     

    in the world
    but not of it --
    autumn wind

     

    just another
    of winter’s losses --
    my singing voice

     

    every bit as black
    as the plumage of the crows --
    their strident cries

  • Tico, Tom

    Tom TicoTom Tico

    May 15, 1942 - February 4, 2016
    Tom Tico's Legacy Biography

  • Trumbull, Charles

    Photo 2013 by Susan GardnerCharles Trumbull

    born May 17, 1943, Flint, Michigan, U.S.A.  Now resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 
    Email: trumbullcp [at] comcast [dot] net.

    Dr. Charles Trumbull is retired from research, writing, editorial, and publishing positions at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Encyclopædia Britannica. He is past president of the Haiku Society of America and retired editor of Modern Haiku. His chapbook Between the Chimes was published in 2011, and A Five-Balloon Morning, a book of New Mexico haiku, appeared in June 2013. A History of Modern Haiku came out in 2019. These days he divides his time between his Haiku Database and Haikupedia, the online encyclopedia of haiku.


  • van Zutphen, Ted

    Ted van Zutphen

    Born 1950 in Rotterdam, Netherlands
    Living in a mobile home travelling USA
    http://nierf.com
    Contact the poet

  • Villa, Christine L.

    Christine L. Villa

    Born in Quezon City, Philippines
    Living in Sacramento, California, USA
    http://blossomrain.blogspot.com
    Contact the poet

  • Wechselberger, Joseph P.

    Joseph P. WechselbergerJoseph P. Wechselberger

    Born 1946 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA
    Living in Browns Mills, New Jersey USA
    Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    Retired since 2007, Joseph is a member of the Haiku Society of America. Touchstone nominated in 2021, 2022, and 2023 (long-listed), his work has appeared in 46 haiku journals, various blogs and anthologies, Haiku 2022, and The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haikufor 2020, 2022 and 2023.


  • West, Richard

    Richard WestRichard West

    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., the pen name of Richard Wilkinson, was born in 1951 in the UK, and currently lives in AZ, USA. 

    "Richard West" was Regents' Professor of Classics in a large public university and has published numerous books and many articles and poems under his own name or various pen names.  He now lives in the Desert Southwest, where he enjoys cooking and attempting to add flavor to his poems.


  • Whitman, Neal

    Neal Whitman

    Born 1948 in Boston Massachusetts, USA
    Living in Pacific Grove, California, USA
    Contact the poet

  • Williams, Joshua Eric

    Joshua Eric WilliamsJoshua Eric Williams


    Born 1983 in Carrollton, GA, USA
    Joshua Eric Williams is from Carrollton, GA. He has an M.A. in Creative Writing with an emphasis in poetry from Western State Colorado University. His work explores and experiments with short forms (including haiku, senryu, epigrams, sonnets, pantoums, and villanelles).


     

  • Wills, John

    John WillsJohn Wills

    (4 July 1921 – 24 September 1993)

    John Howard Wills was born on 4 July 1921 in Los Angeles, California. He received an MA degree from the University of Chicago in 1951, and a PhD from Washington University in St. Louis in 1961. For more than two decades John taught American and English literature at universities in Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee and during that time, he published critical essays on T. S. Eliot, Joseph Conrad, and other writers. After the death of his first wife, he married artist and poet Marlene Morelock (now known as Marlene Mountain). They worked together on several haiku projects with him writing the poem and her creating the artwork behind the poem – drawings and photographs.

    John’s earliest attempts at writing haiku were made in 1965 after Marlene showed him 'The Way of Zen' by Alan Watts. Actually his earliest haiku writing was influenced by his children's poems.  Later in 1968, a colleague gave John and Marlene some back copies of ‘American Haiku’ (which had published its last issue that May). John’s serious interest in haiku began after getting acquainted with the work of Nicholas Virgilio. As he wrote more and more haiku, his skills quickly improved and some early work appeared in 1969 in Haiku West, SCTH, Haiku (Canada), and Haiku Spotlight (Japan). Within that same year, John published his first two books - Weathervanes and Back Country. If one considers the poets publishing in early ‘American haiku’ as the first wave, John was among the second wave of  contemporary writers of English-language haiku and some of his earliest work did not follow the traditional rules. He had a very unique style of writing and according to some haiku experts there was a certain iambic meter to his style, almost like a musical flow in his haiku. Encouraged by his wife Marlene Mountain who was one of the first English-language haiku poets to write haiku regularly in a single horizontal line, John wrote some 'one-line' haiku which were later published.

    In 1970, John spent the summer studying haiku in Matsuyama, Japan, under a research grant from Georgia Southern College, and in 1971, he moved with his family to Tennessee. They lived on 100 acres in the mountains of Tennessee and named their land "Sweetwater." Much of his best work was written there and he would be called by some the greatest nature poet writing haiku.

    By the end of his life, John Wills had published more than 800 haiku and nine books. His haiku were published in journals and anthologies and his work still appears in articles and essays written by a new generation of haiku poets, as well as by his contemporaries who continue to cherish and admire his work. John Wills died on 24 September 1993.


    Books Published:

    • Weathervanes, published by Rhoda de Long Jewell ; (Sangre de Cristo Press, 1969);
    • Back Country, photographs by Marlene M. Wills. Partial funding: Georgia Southern College (1969);
    • river, drawings by Marlene M. Wills for Georgia Southern College (1970), 2nd ed. Elizabethton, Tenn. (1976); 
    • The Young Leaves: Haiku of Spring and Summer,drawings by Marlene M. Wills. Statesboro, Ga.: Georgia Southern College (1970);
    • Cornstubble: Haiku of Fall and Winter, Photographs by Marlene M. Wills. Statesboro, Ga.: Georgia Southern College  (1971);
    • 21 haiku greeting cards, haiku by John Wills, drawings/design by Marlene Wills, 1977, self-published, TN;
    • Up a Distant Ridge, Manchester, N.H.: First Haiku Press (1980);
    • Reed Shadows, Sherbrooke, Que./Windsor, Ont.: Burnt Lake Press/Black Moss Press (1987);
    • mountain, S.E. Publishing (1993).

     

    Awards and other Honours:

    • Appointed to the first Haiku Society Awards Committee (the Society accepted the committee's recommendations and added awards for Wills' books Back Country and river);
    •  Served on the first selections panel for Frogpond magazine;
    • First Honourable Mention, HSA Merit Book Awards for Reed Shadows;
    • John had 21 haiku selected for the 1974 edition of The Haiku Anthology, 36 haiku for the 1986 edition, and 40 for the 1999 edition.

     

    Selected works:

    The hills
        release the summer clouds
             one . . . by one . . . by one

    (Back Country, Wills J., (1969)

     

    the old field
    throbs with insects...
    summer moon

    (Frogpond 8:3 (1985)

     

    autumn wind
    the rise and fall
    of sparrows

    (Modern Haiku 18:1 (winter-spring 1987)

     

    the river
    leans upon the snag
    a moment

    (Reed Shadows, Wills, J.,Sherbrooke, QC.: Burnt Lake Press, 1987)

     

    dusk from rock to rock a waterthrush

    (Up a Distant Ridge (1980); The Haiku Anthology, Van Den Heuvel, Cor, ed. , New York: Norton, 2000, p.301)


    in an upstairs room
    of the abandoned house
    a doll moongazing

    (The Haiku Anthology, Van Den Heuvel, Cor, ed. , New York: Norton, 2000, p.304)

     

    i catch
    the maple leaf        then let
    it go

    (from Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart by Patricia Donegan, Shambhala Publications Inc, 2008)

     

    More of John’s early haiku at:

    http://www.marlenemountain.org/backward/limage/ftm8c_jwillshaiku.html

     

    Some articles, essays and interviews with John Wills:

    • Wills, John, "Depth in Haiku," unpublished essay (1974);
    •  van den Heuvel, Cor, ed., The Haiku Anthology, New York: Anchor Books (1974);
    •  McClintock, Michael, "A Conversation With John Wills," Modern Haiku 7:2 (1976), 6-8;
    • van den Heuvel, Cor, "John Wills and One-Line Haiku - I: A Troutswirl Simplicity", Frogpond 4:4 (1981), 30–33;
    • van den Heuvel, Cor, "John Wills and One-Line Haiku – II: One-Liners", Frogpond 5:1 (1982), 38–45;
    • van den Heuvel, Cor, "John Wills and One-Line Haiku – III: Three in One or One in Three", Frogpond 5:3 (1982), 38–46 [Correction in Frogpond VI;1 (1983), 45-46;
    • St. Jacques, Elizabeth, "The Importance of Rhythm in Haiku," Woodnotes 15 (1992);
    • Estevez, Efren, "Images of John Wills," Frogpond XXVII:1 (2004), 55-57;
    • Estevez, Efren, "Troutswirl: Art in the Nature Poems of John Wills," The Haiku Society of America Newsletter XXI:4 (2006), 12-13.

     

    Sources:

    http://www.marlenemountain.org/mminfo/mi_mmjw_books.html
    http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/poet-details/?IDclient=7
    http://terebess.hu/english/usa/wills.html
    http://performance.millikin.edu/haiku/writerprofiles/RuffnerOnWills.html
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_in_English
    http://www.hsa-haiku.org/frogpond/2010-issue33-2/essay2-miller.html
    http://www.modernhaiku.org/essays/RossEssay.html

     

    This profile was created in collaboration with John Wills’ wife the poet and artist Marlene Mountain. We appreciate her help in updating the available information on John’s biography and publications! 

     

  • Wilson, Billie

    Billie WilsonBillie Wilson

    (born August 1, 1941, Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.A.) is a long-time member of the Haiku Society of America, and served several terms as Regional Coordinator for the Alaska Region. Since 2003, she has coordinated the annual haiku competition honoring her first mentor, Robert Spiess. She helped create and care for The Haiku Foundation's Haiku Registry (2009-2018). She served as Associate Editor for The Heron’s Nest (2011 - 2017). Some of her awards include the Harold G. Henderson Memorial Award, the Gerald Brady Memorial Award, and The Heron's Nest Readers' Choice Poem of the Year. She has resided in Juneau, Alaska, since 1962.


     

  • Wilson, Robert D.

    Robert D. Wilson

    Born 1949 in Los Angeles, California, USA
    Living in Philippines
    http://lousymirror.blogspot.com
    http://simplyhaikujournal.com
    Contact the poet

  • Wisdom, John W.

    John W. Wisdom

    Born in Tampa, Florida, USA
    Living in South Sarasota, Florida, USA
    Contact the poet

  • Woerdehoff, Valorie Broadhurst

    Valorie Broadhurst Woerdehoff

    Born 1954 in the USA
    Valorie Broadhurst Woerdehoff, originally from Northern California (USA), has for the last nearly 35 years called Dubuque, Iowa, home. Her poems, including haiku, senryu and rengay, have been widely published. She has judged haiku contests and earned awards for her writing and haiku on the local and national level.


  • Woodruff, Keith

    Keith WoodruffKeith Woodruff

    Born in San Jose, California, in 1963. Currently living in Ohio and missing the ocean. I have an MA in poetry from Purdue U, and am honored to have had my work appear in Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Mayfly, Acorn, A Hundred Gourds, and the Big Sky: the Red Moon anthology.

  • Young, Gideon

    Gideon YoungGideon Young

    Gideon Young is a member of the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective, a Fellow for A+ Schools of North Carolina, a K-12 Literacy Specialist, and a stay-at-home dad. His debut haiku collection my hands full of light was published by Backbone Press (2021). His poetry is included in Best Spiritual Literature 2022 (Orison Books) and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Gideon is co-author of One Window’s Light: A Collection of Haiku, published by Unicorn Press, 2017, winner of the Haiku Society of America Merit Award for Best Anthology. Find recent and forthcoming work in Callaloo, Journal of Black Mountain College Studies, Juxta 8, North Carolina Literary Review, Our State Magazine, and Pan Haiku Review. Winner of a 2023 Arts in Education Artist Residency Grant from the North Carolina Arts Council, discover more at www.gideonyoung.com.


     

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