I’m excited to announce that starting today, I’m taking orders for my latest book, 5-7-5: a daily haiku journal. Over the course of one year, I developed a practice to write a 17-syllable haiku every day. The book is organized day-by-day with a haiku at the top of each page and below that, room for you to respond with your own haiku or any thoughts you have about your day. You can use the book like a classic 4-year journal or fill up the page however you like.
5-7-5: a daily haiku journal will make a great holiday gift for the people in your life who want to explore and document the world with fresh eyes. Maybe that is you! Please visit my online shop at lisavihos.com and order your copy (or copies) today!
Reviewers share:
Lisa Vihos has been an inspiration to me as I try my own hand at haiku; I liken it to giving voice to my eyes. I can capture and log brief glimpses of life while challenging myself a bit–all for fun! –Betsy Alles, retired director of Sheboygan Chamber of Commerce
In this haiku-a-day journal, trees become veins, leaves make a cathedral, and end-lines give pause. Vihos delivers a blessed invitation to look deeper into the world and ourselves; to salvage the goodness in each day. –Hannah Harder, author of A Woman in the Wilderness: A Foray in Poetry and A Lexicon of Love.
I have gotten in the habit of writing on Georg’s birthday and also on his death day. However, this year, February 18 came and went and I did not manage to write. This is not because I was not thinking of him on this birthday, but I was busy preparing for a photo shoot of his large scale drawings. Let’s just say I was preoccupied with things other than blogging. I was with my sister that day—she came up from Chicago to help with the photo shoot—and we ate cannoli in his honor, but I did not write for him.
Honestly, blogging has really gotten away from me the last few years. This is due in part to the fact that I have been grappling with a novel, The Lone Snake: The Story of Sofonisba Anguissola. At long last, the book is done and will be released by Water’s Edge Press in April, 2022. It has been a long road.
I first learned of Sofonisba in 1995 when I wrote a short article about her for New Moon: The Magazine for Girls and Their Dreams. She was born in Cremona in 1532, and although her father was not an artist, he supported her artistic talent with education. She studied with Michelangelo and served at the Spanish court of Philip II, teaching the young Queen Isabel to draw and paint. She married twice but never had any children and lived to be ninety-three. The family name, “anguis sola” is Latin for “the lone snake,” and that metaphor for her life would not leave me.
Ever since I read about her unique and inspiring life, I wanted to tell her story. I had many years of false starts as I looked for the best way to craft the tale and many years of no writing at all. Not until 2017 did I buckle down and begin to write in earnest. Even then, it took me a while. Writing a novel is not easy.
Well, here is it, a quarter of a century after my initial thought to write this book. Now it is real. I am proud of what I have done, proud that I stuck with it. Any nervousness I feel regarding what others will think about the book is kept at bay by the thought that Georg would be so proud. I did it for you, Dad. Happy belated birthday.
Sheboygan, WI is a city of 49,288 people, and while I wasn’t born and raised here, it has grown on me. It is something about the proximity to the lake, to farmland, to beautiful city parks and state parks, to great restaurants, to bike paths, to an amazing Arts Center, and to the ever-more diverse, creative, kind-hearted, wonderful people who live and work here. I moved here with my family in 2002 and so I have lived here longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life. Can I say I am a Sheboyganite yet? I think so. And now, I have been appointed as the bard for this fair city. What an honor! What a task! And what does a poet laureate do, anyway?According to Wikipedia, a poet laureate is a poet who is officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. I could do that. During her or his term, a poet laureate seeks to raise the national (or in my case, municipal) consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry. That task is also right up my alley, in my wheelhouse, and a primary feature of my natural habitat.
Well this is exciting, to be the first poet laureate of my lovely Midwestern city, Sheboygan, WI. I may have been born in Chicago, grown up in the suburbs of Detroit, attended college in Poughkeepsie, NY, lived for fifteen years in Los Angeles as an adult, but Sheboygan is where I have settled. I am not sure if I will ever live any place else.
I have long been a poet who organizes happenings and spaces in which people can find their own voice, or at least their own personal connection to poetry. Through events like Poetic Pairings: How Poetry Speaks, the world-wide movement known as 100 Thousand Poets for Change, and my 10-year dedication to Stoneboat Literary Journal, much has been accomplished. People have learned new things about themselves and others. I have learned new things about myself and others. And the best part about all this is that there is still more to learn!
I am only on day three of my new tenure, but I am chomping at the bit to start doing SOMETHING. I have a multitude of ideas, and all of them involve working with the community. But let me not forget that along with organizing, it is very important to keep writing. As my friend and mentor, poet Karl Elder of Lakeland University said to me, “I know I don’t need to urge you to keep writing, which is the most important thing a laureate ought to do.”
Agreed. But while I am writing poetry and sharing it, I want everyone to start thinking more like a poet. What does that mean? I think I will address that in my next blog post. So please come back. I will meet you here. There is so much to do in this world at this time. We must speak up in every way we can to end racism in America and also make sure we change the administration of our country. Oh, and protect the planet from global warming, ensure health care for all, make sure no one in America goes hungry…wow. The list of things that needs changing is long. I know it would be naive to say that poetry can do any of this alone, but I will continue to contend that poetry can help. Then, there is COVID-19. That needs a vaccine, not a poem. But, again, poetry can help us process all the anguish, grief, and uncertainty. Together, we’ll make a plan for how poetry can change the world, one poem at a time.
As the poet Jane Yolen wrote: it’s not what we stand against, but what we stand for ‘cause the arc of justice doesn’t just bend itself, you know.
