John Haines

1924–2011

Harper's critic Hayden Carruth labels John Haines "one of our best nature poets, or for that matter one of the best nature writers of any kind." Jerry B. McAninch describes Haines in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as a "present-day pioneer," asserting that the poet "speaks as a man who not only lived on one of the nation's few remaining frontiers but who, both through long association and innate artistic sensibility, has come to embody that frontier in his writing."

Prior to homesteading in Alaska in 1954, Haines began hunting, fishing, trapping, gardening, and writing there during the 1940s. "Being quiet up there in the north for a while, [Haines] began to register what he learned about basic human existence," observes New York Times Book Review critic William Stafford, "and his poems—viewing civilization lengthwise and estimating its curve—began to show up like spear points in little magazines." McAninch further notes that Haines's "primitive life in Alaska" and his "early education in art often combine to endow his poems with a singular insight and a unique voice." The critic compares Haines's verse to "the visual arts in its dreamlike quality, its use of color, and its use of space. The term surreal crops up frequently in discussions of Haines's poetry. He labels many of his poems 'dreams,' and surreal, bizarre visions they are indeed."

McAninch comments on the significance of Haines's color imagery, noting "the bold use of color in some poems, and perhaps rather more interestingly, the lack of color in others. More typical of his better-known work is an absence of color either as brooding darkness or an all-encompassing whiteness ... whiteness as fog, mist, cloud, and snow, frequently muddling and suffusing all else, suggesting isolation and death. Quite naturally linked with an absence of color is cold—absolute, frozen cold." In Haines's language, also, writes McAninch, "there is a sense of vastness coupled with a removal of all but the necessary details. One cannot help but be reminded of minimalist painting when reading of Haines's vast snowfields or somber Alaskan winter nights." Lawrence Raab in American Scholar shares McAninch's observation of the elemental character underlying Haines's verse, commenting, "One feels that the poet, through the act of the poem, is reaching toward something as basic and as necessary as food or shelter."

Career

Poet; freelance lecturer and writer, 1969—. Has worked as a housepainter and carpenter; employed briefly as a clerk in the U.S. Department of the Navy, Washington, DC; since 1946, has worked as hunter, gardener, fisherman, trapper, and writer; homesteader in Alaska, 1954-69. University of Alaska, poet-in-residence, 1972-73; writer-in-residence, Sheldon Jackson College, 1982-83, Ucross Foundation, 1987, Montalvo Center for the Arts, 1988, and Djerassi Foundation, 1988. Midnight Sun Conference, University of Alaska, guest writer, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, and 1986-87; panelist and guest writer, Moorhead College, University of New Mexico, University of Texas, and Center for Northern Studies, all 1980, Anchorage Community College, 1981, and Juneau Museum of Art, 1981; Sitka Writers Symposium, member of staff, 1986; Loft Mentor Series, visiting writer, 1987. University of Washington, visiting professor of English, 1974; University of Montana, visiting lecturer in English, beginning 1974; visiting lecturer or professor at numerous institutions, including University of Michigan, Guggenheim Museum, Oberlin College, Idaho State University, Alaska Pacific University, Ohio University, and New York City Public High Schools. Member of Pacific Grove Library Board, 1972; Alaska Humanities Forum program director, 1972-73.

Bibliography

(Translator) Miguel Hernandez, El Amor Ascentia, Ox Head Press, 1967.
(Contributor) William Heyen, editor, American Poets in 1976, Bobbs-Merrill, 1976.
(Contributor) Alberta T. Turner, editor, Fifty Contemporary Poets: The Creative Process, McKay, 1977.
(With others) Minus Thirty-One and the Wind Blowing: Nine Reflections about Living on Land, Alaska Pacific, 1980.
The River Is Wider Than It Seems (script for documentary film), Montana Committee for the Humanities, 1980.
Living off the Country: Essays on Poetry and Place, University of Michigan Press, 1981.
Other Days (prose memoir), Graywolf Press, 1982.
Of Traps and Snares (three essays on trapping and wilderness life), Dragon Press, 1982.
Stories We Listened To, Bench Press, 1986.
(Contributor) On Nature, North Point Press, 1987.
(Contributor) Essays, Memoirs and Reflections, Graywolf Press, 1987.
(Author of foreword) John Muir, Travels to Alaska, Sierra Books, 1987.
(Author of preface) Edwin Muir, The Story and the Fable, Rowan Tree, 1987.
You and I and the World (essays), University of Michigan Press, 1988.
The Stars, the Snow, the Fire, Graywolf Press, 1989.
Rain Country, Mad River Press, 1990.
Fables and Distances: New and Selected Essays, Graywolf Press, 1996.

POETRY

Winter News, Wesleyan University Press, 1966, revised edition, 1983.
Suite for the Pied Piper, Ox Head Press, 1968.
The Legend of Paper Plates, Unicorn Press, 1970.
The Mirror, Unicorn Press, 1970.
The Stone Harp, Wesleyan University Press, 1971.
Twenty Poems, Unicorn Press, 1971, 3rd edition, 1982.
Leaves and Ashes, Kayak Press, 1975.
In Five Years Time, Smokeroot Press, 1976.
Cicada, Wesleyan University Press, 1977.
In a Dusty Light, Graywolf Press, 1977.
The Sun on Your Shoulder, Graywolf Press, 1977.
News from the Glacier: Selected Poems, 1960-1980, Wesleyan University Press, 1982.
New Poems, Story Line Press, 1990.
The Owl in the Mask of the Dreamer: Collected Poems, Graywolf Press, 1993.
At the End of This Summer: Poems, 1948-1954, Copper Canyon Press, 1997.

OTHER

Also author with John Adams of a secular cantata, Forest without Leaves, performed and recorded in 1984. Fifteen poems from Winter News have been translated into native Alaskan languages. Contributor to numerous periodicals, including Ohio Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Nation, Northwest Review, Harper's, New England Review, and Hudson Review.