Reader Response Study of John Wills

 After reading about the evolution of haiku writing, I realized I was especially interested in the earlier influential haiku writers in the United States They were important because they helped loosen the stricter Japanese format to be able to include American scenes and social outlooks. The format also became less about counting verses and syllables and more about expressing personal experience and sentiment. The English-language writers of the 1950’s and 1960’s broke barriers to allow us to write haiku as we know them today. Being able to include the society and emotions of the writer enabled his peer readers to relate more readily to the haiku.

One of these early writers was John Wills, who was born July 4, 1921 and died at age seventy-two in 1993. Although he had written poetry and prose earlier, he didn’t find his true literary niche until 1968 when he began writing haiku. Wills was undoubtedly influenced by the American scholars of the 1960’s who believed, haiku was, “the poetry of sensation’ as opposed to that of thought and emotion.” (Shirane, 1998, p. 44). Having received a faculty study grant, Wills was also able to study haiku writing during the summer in Japan in 1970. Much of Wills works have a distinctly Japanese feeling. For example:

touching down
in distant fields
spring rain

     Wills, Reed Shadows, 13

in the sky’s color
the color of the sea—
autumn swallows

     Masajo, Love Haiku, 34

Both of these use nature to describe a picture. Emotions surface from these depictions of nature. In Wills’ haiku, the clouds are touching the fields as the rain falls in the distance. The grayness pressing down with the freshness of the spring rain gives a feeling of problems that are being washed away. In Masajo’s haiku, the color of the sky and the sea are the same. Against them are autumn swallows. Possibly the autumn indicates rains, which would make the sky and sea a gray color. The bird against this may be a picture of hope, or overcoming adversity. These haiku are both pictures of nature which the reader must decide the meaning for themselves.

To me the most interesting haiku that Wills wrote were those that place an obvious mention of society or people along with a scene of nature. As Rod Willmot states, “In spite of the fact that John Wills draws his subjects predominately from nature, the message he conveys with them is profoundly human.” In these haiku, society references are clearly present:

keep out sign
but the violets keep on
going

     Wills, Reed Shadows, 14

The keep out sign is seen by someone walking through the fields of the countryside. He can see that the violets growing where he walks continue on beyond, disregarding the sign. What makes this interesting is wondering what the walker’s thoughts are. Does he think nature does not have to follow man’s rules? Possibly he considers himself one with nature and can follow along with the violets. Another society reference is in this haiku:

after the prom
the hill girl waltzes
her puppy

     Wills, Reed Shadows, 43

A sweet picture of a teenage girl, reliving the dance she had attended by picking up her dog and spinning around, probably in a field outdoors. In this we not only see her dreams, but our pasts.

One of the reasons for Wills connection with people and emotions was his marriage to a fellow haiku poet, later known as Marlene Mountain. Relationships with other people are a large part of our thoughts. It would be only natural for Wills to express them in his haiku “Many of his greatest haiku were written between 1971 and 1978…” (Van den Heuvel, 1999, p. xix). I believe his haiku were best when the emotion in his personal relationship is clearly present as in these haiku below:

before the window
she loosens her hair
an evening of spring

     Wills, Reed Shadows, 43

The scene is sensual by the breeze in her long hair and also provocative in that she stands before the window. I conject that she stands in front of the window, knowing she will be seen.

winter again
my wife’s hair crackles
under the comb

     Wills, Reed Shadows, 47

An intimate seen of a man watching his wife brush her hair. The sparks flying as she brushes may mirror a tension between them.

i stop and watch
the wild geese pass
then badger my wife

     Wills, Reed Shadows, 47

Here is a picture of a man delaying going home, knowing that he will have the same old argument he has had with her that he has before. Perhaps this is toward the end of their relationship. Wills’ marriage to his wife ended in divorce in the late 1970’s of what was considered the end his “great” period. We see a glimpse into the author himself in the next one:

how dim and strange
my childhood seems
this night of snow

     Wills, Reed Shadows, 49

The outside world is separated from him by “this night of snow”. The introspection “how dim and strange my childhood seems” could mean he is feeling old. Or maybe just looking back at all his life’s choices, wondering he could have made better ones. The overall feeling is that of regrets.
In this last haiku he mentions himself and arrives at a philosophy of life:

here today
between my hat
and my boots

     Wills, Reed Shadows, 64

People never seem to arrive at all the lofty goals they have set for themselves early in life. We are who we are at this moment in time.

Human relationships were more important to Wills’ creative flow than the American scholars or his Japanese study. The relationship with his wife may have been especially significant to his success. Within a few years of the split with his wife, Wills ceased publishing new haiku. His later years were spent ghost-writing and editing throughout the Southern part of America and later retired to Florida.

The works of John Wills stand as beneficial transition from the older and more sterile Japanese form to American societal and interpersonal inclusions to haiku writing.

Works Cited

Shirane, Haruo. (1998). Traces of Dreams. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Van Den Heuvel, Cor. (1999). The Haiku Anthology, 3rd Ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Willmot, Rod. (1987). Introduction. In John Wills, Reed Shadows. . Ontario, Canada: Black Moss Press and Quebec, Canada: Burnt Lake Press.

Wills, John. (1987). Reed Shadows. Ontario, Canada: Black Moss Press and Quebec, Canada: Burnt Lake Press.