title: Marlene Mountain
text: # Marlene Mountain
  
  Marlene Mountain (née Morelock; December 11, 1939 – March 15, 2018), also known as Marlene Morelock Wills, was an American poet, artist, and activist. She wrote many English-language haiku and concrete poems.
  
  She was the 2014-2015 honorary curator of the American Haiku Archives at the California State Library in Sacramento.
  
  Femku Magazine has a haiku contest named after Mountain.
  
  ## Biography
  
  Mountain was born in Ada, Oklahoma. She earned a BFA from the University of Oklahoma in painting and an MA in painting from the University of North Dakota. She began writing haiku in 1968.
  
  After she married her husband, John Wills, she moved with him to east Tennessee.
  
  ## Writing
  
  She wrote several one-line haiku and was also known for writing visual haiku (short poems that had visual effects like that of concrete poetry), which she referred to as "dadaku" or "unaloud haiku" and are sometimes also called "eye-ku".
  
  ## Personal life
  
  She was married to John Wills, another haiku poet. They later divorced.
  
  