marlene mountain
aka: marlene morelock/marlene wills
december 11 1939
mm info/background


travels
France, Aruba, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Japan (4 months)

schools
Horace Mann Elementary and High Schools
graduated 1957

1957-59 East Central State College (University of Oklahoma/Ada)
art major

1959-62 University of Oklahoma (Norman)
BFA Painting, major: Painting, minor: Drawing and Graphics
Outstanding Senior in Art; Lew Wentz Service Scholarship; Special Commendation in Painting, Drawing, Graphics; Mothers' Association Scholarship; Alumni Development Fund Purchase Award; Delta Phi Delta National Art Fraternity

1962-63 University of Minnesota
graduate studies

1964-65 University of North Dakota
MA Painting, minor Literature
taught Drawing and Design courses for one and a half years

I painted from 1959-1969; during this time ideas evolved into abstraction, two-dimensional design and minimalism in paintings, photography and short non-haiku poems. The majority of these in series.

During the ten years I did not paint I became more interested in the concepts of haiku; yet over time I've been fortunate enough to disregard them as internal visions seeped out or erupted; that is, interrupted what I was doing.

Still, I call them haiku. Even as I also call visual aspects from that period unaloud haiku and visually aloud haiku. And call the haiku criticisms dadaku. The haiku tear outs began around 1974 and over the years have included other- and one-line haiku, nature talks back, visualante, sheku and a follow up of dadaku, high coup.

Other terms, forms and ideas include blind and found renga [sic], talking haiku, untamed haiku, beyond untamed haiku, high coup hai ku, a crone's highcoup captions, deliberate reverse sexism and, a more encompassing phrase, women's haiku, which is an opening up rather than a narrowing of haiku content.

I think of haiku as an encompassing term much like rock and roll or jazz. A variety of approaches beneath that umbrella. How could it be otherwise? Since c. 1991, as part of my ongoing discarding of as many Japanese words/terms/attitudes as possible, I've spoken of renga as linked haiku. Please see backward in from the mountain for many of the reasons for this discarding process. Although I don't believe a contemporary woman needs any reasons.

Since returning to painting in 1979, words and images are often intrinsically bound--'i've written my paintings and painted my writings.'

'words words words corrupt my visual world'

I've rarely entered competitions and contests as, among other reasons such as I don't like them, the paintings and even the haiku are in some kind of series (sequences and linked haiku) and are somewhat interdependent and more recently dependent on viewer/reader dialogue.

Since 1979 there are maybe two one-painting paintings and in recent times not so many one-haiku haiku. Of late I haven't sent much material to haiku magazines. Usually I've latched onto a specific magazine because of an editor's ability to see form and content in haiku as creative. To me the term experimental haiku means three lines of English containing 17 syllables, more or less. Not counting--so to speak--the attempted use of 'correctly-compartmentalized' nature words.

 

haiku   october 1985

spring morning a chemical spill
summer afternoon a chemical spill
autumn evening a chemical spill
winter night a chemical spill


passive resistance   october 1985

haiku is not my tearoom
my tearoom is my tearoom
if i had one
i refuse to be denied content

 

un   october 1985

no one owns
especially old dead
and their
so i

one-line haiku sequences from pissed off poems and cross words
self-published 1986


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