marlene mountain
reviews of

[in progress]

LeRoy Gorman:

...considerable future for the one-lines. Marlene Wills uses the one-liner as a powerful vehicle for her explorations of sexuality and female identity--haiku written from a confessional stance, akin to the approach of such confessional poets as Plath and Hughes. ... This commitment to brevity leads one to believe that the conciseness most often found in Wills and Swede will become more the norm, as the one-liner develops further in English. ... a visual onomatopoeia, sometimes termed dadaku [sic]. ... Equally exciting are select visuals approaching the abstract extreme, most notable Marlene Will's [sic] 'crow leaving a rectangle.' The concept of a single word (in this case 'crow') interacting with a non-literal medium (a rectangle) is unnerving in suggestion. The word 'crow' becomes the thing itself (a crow in flight), while the geometric shape of rectangle becomes undone as sign, or at least is moved into new subtlety, so that we are unsure what to visualize and, consequently, are forced to enter and co-create along with the poet. What Wills accomplishes in this haiku is paramount amid her failed visuals, such as 'coyote howling' and 'peacock' in which the letters of things named take on the shape of the things represented (again dadaku [sic]). The results are trivial and in desperate need of an added dimension. So successful, however, is the suggestive power in 'crow leaving a rectangle' that it is the finest haiku to date which stands with one foot in the word and the other beyond. ... distilled chant. An example is Marlene Will's [sic] 'newly plowed field', where one line is repeated three times, working on both a visual and sound level. The combination of both sound and visual elements is most interesting in this poem because the complementary nature of both indicates that many worthwhile haiku combining the two poetries are possible. ... and Marlene Will's [sic] 'furrow: work remarkable when chanted over and over. I suspect neither Wills nor van den Heuval intended this and were perhaps more concerned with the visual impact. ... 'furrow possess an intrinsic and arresting sound value.

[mention of 1-line renga, listing of 4 articles (Wills)]

Haiku Review '82 article by LeRoy Gorman

Haiku Review '84
'correction' of dadaku in last Review to 'shape haiku' [sic - unaloud haiku mm]

[listing of equal, hell art, moments, the old tin roof (prices) Wills/M); listing of 6 articles; ad for 21 haiku cards]

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