John Haines

John Meade Haines (June 29, 1924 – March 2, 2011) was an American poet and educator who had served as the poet laureate of Alaska.

John Mead Haines was born in Norfolk, Virginia.

He was the son of a career Navy officer and moved from state to state, living in California, Hawaii, Washington, and New England.

He later moved to Washington, D.C where he attended St. John's College High School.

He served in the Navy as Sonar Man Third Class from 1943 to 1946.

Haines was sent to San Diego Naval Training Station.

Once his training was finished, he was sent to San Pedro to crew a Battleship for a few months and later sent to Norfolk, Virginia.

In Norfolk, he was a part of a small vessel crew until he was reassigned to Boston, Massachusetts.

In Boston, he was assigned to the USS Knapp (DD-653) Destroyer.

Haines was a part of the Marshall Island invasion, the bombardment of Kwajalein, the battle of Truk, and assaults on Marinas, Saipan and Tinian, and The Philippines.

Once the war was over, he went back to Coronado, California.

He went to Washington shortly after.

He was educated at the National Art School from 1946 to 1947.

In 1947, Haines bought a 160-acre homestead claim 80 miles outside of Fairbanks, Alaska.

Haines was unable to paint because of his paint freezing from the cold weather of Alaska and started writing that first winter while he was on the Richardson Homestead.

In 1948 he left Alaska because he wanted to back to school.

He attended American University from 1948 to 1950.

At the American University he studied painting and sculpture while he was working as a Draftsman at the Navy Department.

He attend From 1950 to 1952 he studied at Hans Hofmann's School of Fine Arts in New York before moving to Alaska where he homesteaded from 1954 to 1969.

Haines' poems that were published in 1966 showcased his thoughts towards an existential spirit.

Haines moved to San Diego in 1969, and lived in the lower 48 states for several years before returning to Alaska.

He died in Fairbanks, Alaska.

He was appointed the Poet Laureate of Alaska in 1969.

A collection of critical essays about his poetry, The Wilderness of Vision, was published in 1998.

Haines taught graduate-level and honors English classes at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

John A. Murray also conducted a lengthy interview with John Haines in The Bloomsbury Review, July–August 2004.

Tributes to John Haines by the author and literary critic John A. Murray were published in The Bloomsbury Review, July–August 2011 and The Sewanee Review, Winter 2012.

Haines published nine collections of poetry and numerous works of nonfiction, including his acclaimed Alaskan book The Stars, the Snow, the Fire: Twenty-Five Years in the Alaska Wilderness.

Haines was twice the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

There are discussions of John Haines in Murray's book Abbey in America: A Philosopher's Legacy in a New Century (University of New Mexico Press, Jun 15, 2015) in the essay 'The Age of Abbey' and the Afterword.

Haines believed a good poem illuminates for a moment the context which existed before the poem.

He had a distinctive voice, a phrasal rhythm, and writing was intensely personal.

Haines used direct speech that was plain, suggestive, and memorable metaphors.

Haines talked about the harshness of the climate and the relationship between the hunter and the hunted.

Some of Haines’s poetry suggests readers look past the trivial aspects of the physical world and imagine a dreamlike journey.

He dissolves temporal boundaries of the natural world, without losing his awareness of the importance of understanding contemporary history, associates Dreamtime with elemental activities such as hunting and traveling over the land, showing the continuity of such experience, and its vitality and importance in affirming longstanding human habits of relating to the natural world.

Haines' poetry and prose are about his experiences in Alaska and his experiences enlarges our sense of the “pastness if things” while simultaneously rendering the present in sharp detail.

Haines’ first book, Winter News used the imagery of death, silence, the relationship between the hunter and the hunted that centers around death.

His focus was on the Alaska interior and his dreams and visions.

He believed in the human spirit that is existential which is concerned with the here and now.