SECOND NATURE: Salvaged Metal Sculpture and Haiku at Rockford ArtScene

This fall has developed in a way I did not particularly plan. What began as several separate projects—walking, writing haiku, making books, collaborating with other artists, paying attention to the animals and landscapes around Rockford—has gradually begun to look like one larger body of work. The connections were probably there all along. I just hadn't necessarily thought of them as parts of the same thing.

The newest manifestation of that work is SECOND NATURE, a collaboration between Rockford metal artist Michael Zant and haikuists Thomas L. Vaultonburg and Tré of Wolf Twin Books for Fall ArtScene at Rockford Art Deli. SECOND NATURE pairs Zant's salvaged-metal sculptures of animals with original haiku. Each sculpture is made from reclaimed and repurposed materials: old metal given another life as claws, wings, paws, fur, bone and muscle. Each animal is then paired with a poem responding to the creature rather than simply describing the sculpture.

The exhibition is also a benefit for Wild Roots, whose work with injured and orphaned native wildlife gives the project another natural connection. The Rockford Area Arts Council describes the exhibition as celebrating "the wild lives around us" and "the possibilities of discarded things." I couldn't come up with a much better description of what Michael and I are trying to do. Something discarded isn't necessarily finished. Something overlooked isn't necessarily unimportant. Sometimes it just needs to be encountered differently.

There is something appealing to me about making an animal from material that has already had another purpose. A piece of steel doesn't stop existing because a machine, chair, tool or piece of equipment has outlived its usefulness. It simply becomes available for another interpretation. Michael sees a claw where somebody else sees scrap metal. Eventually a collection of those transformations becomes a bear, a bird or an opossum.

Possum sculpture by Michael Zant

The same thing is probably true of places. For more than six years, photographer Ryan Davis and I have walked Rockford making Hike You!, a collaboration of photographs and haiku based on familiar streets, alleys, riverbanks, buildings and overlooked objects. That project will also appear during Fall ArtScene, at RevHaus. We have walked many of the same streets dozens or even hundreds of times, and the strange thing is that repetition doesn't necessarily make them less interesting. Sometimes familiarity eventually circles around and becomes mystery again.

That is remarkably close to what is happening in SECOND NATURE. In one project, an ordinary street becomes strange again because somebody stops long enough to look at it. In another, discarded metal becomes an animal because somebody sees a possibility that wasn't obvious before. Both projects are concerned with reclamation in one form or another, and in both cases the process begins with attention.

Over the past several years I have increasingly used the phrase Prairie Zen to describe this approach to my haiku. Prairie Zen isn't a doctrine, and I'm not particularly interested in turning it into one. It is an attempt to locate the contemplative impulse of haiku in the landscape where I actually live: Midwestern woods, prairie remnants, drainage ditches, county roads, riverbanks, abandoned things, birds, insects and animals. It is a Zen of bur oaks and utility poles, turkey vultures and strip malls, railroad tracks and vacant lots.

The central idea is probably that nothing has to become exotic before it becomes worthy of attention. A rusted fencepost can be enough. A possum can be enough. A bicycle pulled from the Rock River can be enough. A weed growing through concrete can be enough. You don't have to travel halfway around the world looking for a sacred landscape if you're willing to entertain the possibility that you're already standing in one.

That sensibility has increasingly become the connective tissue among these projects, and it is also central to my newest book, Vanished Roads. Published this summer by Wolf Twin Books, Vanished Roads collects 104 haiku and short poems moving through woods, prairies, abandoned roads, animals, weather, grief, humor, memory and renewal. The book is illustrated by Tré and represents perhaps the clearest expression so far of the kind of poetry I've been moving toward.

I didn't write Vanished Roads as a manifesto for Prairie Zen, and I don't want to retroactively turn it into one. The poems came first. The terminology arrived later as I began noticing what I kept returning to: impermanence, overlooked objects, Midwestern landscapes, animals, strange little collisions between the natural and human worlds, and the possibility that something ordinary can suddenly become luminous if you happen to catch it at the right moment.

That makes this fall feel less like a collection of unrelated appearances and more like an interesting convergence. Hike You! takes the idea into the streets of Rockford through photography, walking and haiku. SECOND NATURE brings it into collaboration with Michael Zant's salvaged-metal animals and the wildlife rehabilitation work of Wild Roots. Vanished Roads gathers another part of that landscape into a book. Wolf Twin Books gives the work a home from which it can continue developing.

I don't know that any of this needs to be tied together more neatly than that. In fact, I'd rather leave some room around it. A book, a walking project, a salvaged-metal wildlife exhibition, photography, haiku, Rockford, the prairie, things discarded and found again. They seem to recognize one another.

Perhaps that is what SECOND NATURE means to me more than anything else. Not returning something to what it was, but paying enough attention to discover what else it might become.

Review of Vanished Roads By Conrad Sienkiewicz

 Review of Vanished Roads By Conrad Sienkiewicz

“Vanished Roads” by Thomas L. Vaultonburg is a fantastic collection of just over 100 haiku. Many are in the traditional format of 5-7-5, yet those with fewer syllables really show off Vaultonburg’s skill in doing more with less. Some of his haiku have only four words, yet the mark they make upon the reader is palpable. What Vaultonburg can do with merely four words is impressive and enviable!

Buy Vanished Roads From Wolf Twin Books

Some haiku in this collection are humorous, while others are more somber and reflective. All show a keen eye for nature and an appreciation of life in all forms.

Through his poetry and his fine skill with words, Vaultonburg gives us a magical world, where hats become pilgrims, coyotes deliver sermons, furniture grows teeth, and buckets carry stars.

Vaultonburg’s best efforts can comfortably rest alongside those of other haiku masters, such as Basho and Issa. His haiku “ripe figs” recalls William Carlos Williams’ icebox plums.

Read altogether, the poems feel like a hike through the woods, with occasional stops in more civilized environs. The simple illustrations by Tré that pepper the book complement some of the poems without distracting us from the words.

Illustration "The Mountain Path" by Tré from page 81 of Vanished Roads.

You can also read Conrad's review at Goodreads

The Midwest Zen of Thomas L. Vaultonburg

 Midwest Zen

The Midwest has always suffered from an image problem. It is described as flyover country by people who have flown over it, empty by those who never stopped walking, ordinary by observers who mistake quiet for the absence of depth. I have lived here long enough to know better.

There is a particular kind of stillness that belongs to this region, and it differs from the landscapes that advertise themselves. It lives in long horizons, abandoned rail lines, river fog, weathered barns, neighborhood alleys, floodplains, factory walls overtaken by vines, and conversations where silence often says more than words. If Zen is the practice of paying attention to reality exactly as it is, then the Midwest has been practicing it for generations. No one simply thought to call it that.

My own writing has never tried to escape this geography. If anything, it has spent decades returning to it. Again and again I find myself drawn back to the Rock River, restored prairie, forgotten county roads, industrial edges, Hall Creek cutting through ancient stone, migrating birds, and snow settling onto places where yesterday's arguments no longer matter. Over time I realized I wasn't merely writing about these places. They were shaping the way I looked at the world. The landscape itself had become the discipline.

The haiku arrived naturally because the place was already speaking in brief moments. A bird announcing itself after a diagnosis. Goldenrod reclaiming an abandoned lot without witnesses. Moonlight passing through every knot in an old barn. These moments resist spectacle. They refuse performance. They possess the quiet confidence of things that existed long before anyone thought to photograph them and will remain after we are gone. That, to me, is Midwest Zen.

This has nothing to do with nostalgia, nor is it an attempt to romanticize rural America. The Midwest carries its own burdens: economic decline, forgotten towns, empty storefronts, abandoned factories, difficult winters, and people who quietly continue despite them all. There is a kind of wisdom in that continuation. Not dramatic resilience, but ordinary endurance. It is easy to overlook because it seldom announces itself.

For years my work has moved toward smaller and smaller moments, not because the world became less interesting, but because my attention became more precise. The farther I walked into local landscapes, the less I felt compelled to search for extraordinary experiences somewhere else. The extraordinary had been waiting in familiar places all along. Rockford became enough. Southern Wisconsin became enough. The prairie became enough. A creek became enough. That realization is not provincial. It is liberating.

Much of American literature still assumes significance arrives from somewhere larger, louder, richer, or more famous. Midwest Zen begins from the opposite conviction. If we cannot discover meaning where we actually live, we are unlikely to discover it anywhere else.

Looking back across more than three decades of writing, I can see a pattern that was invisible while I was living it. I have spent much of my life publishing through small presses, documenting overlooked places, writing poems that ask readers to pause instead of accelerating past the ordinary. None of this began as a philosophy. It simply became one through repetition.

The work has always trusted quiet over noise, observation over declaration, presence over performance. Perhaps Midwest Zen is simply the name that pattern has been waiting for—not because I invented it, but because I have spent a lifetime listening for it.

Illustration from Vanished Roads by Tré

Buy Vanished Roads by Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Review of Vanished Roads By Melanie Medved

 Review of Vanished Roads By Melanie Medved

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I thought Thomas L. Vaultonburg's new collection of poems was going to stay with me for an afternoon, which is how long it took me to devour his latest publication, “Vanished Roads.” Instead, it's been lingering for two weeks now, in the way the first Autumn night air settles into your bones. It’s just sitting there, thick with emotional residue and meaning, while I struggle to succinctly put into words just how stellar the collection is.

Vaultonburg has been a favorite of mine for years. Following his literary career through everything from darker poetry to children's books and fiction, I've witnessed him move effortlessly between genres and forms. He has a strong ability to shapeshift as a writer, yet maintain his track record of consistent excellence in all genres. I was looking forward to his collection of haiku/short-form poetry, waiting to see if he could once again knock it out of the park. He has.

From the opening poem, which arrives not like a leaf drifting onto the page, but like a train waking you up in the night, Vaultonburg announces his poetic intention immediately— You’re going to feel something as you read these poems. The first three lines introduce a pattern he will use often throughout the book— most often staying true to the concept of traditional haiku using a central subject in nature (in this case, wind and bamboo) and adding a few perfectly chosen words to assign it an emotional impact (this time, human emotional frailty and ennui) that often jumps out at the reader with layers of meaning. He writes:

wind through bamboo

I too

Am hollow.

Then, after announcing himself and his arrival, without hesitation, he rolls up his sleeves and trudges off in old boots into the colorful territory: dawn, peonies, the evening rain, deer, wolf tracks and more. Quietly threading the beautiful natural landscapes we all encounter each day, with the fragile emotional territory of grief, regret, loneliness, and hope— one after the other, painting them together in a style that is somehow both bold and vivid and soft and gentle at the same time— Vaultonburg is like the Van Gogh of poetry.

Though his subjects are universally relatable, they are still deeply personal, as evident early on pages 8 and 9, when he writes about the passing of two family members in a way that made me ache with empathy and understanding. Those feelings accumulate with each page, and nearly every haiku hits hard. By the final page you’re sitting there with the wind knocked out of you, not by a hurricane, but by a light spring rain. The weight of his tiny gray book is difficult to shake, in the best possible ways.

A bonus is that it felt like a two-in-one book: poetry combined with Buddhist wisdom. Many writers try hard to “teach” lessons, and while Vaultonburg wasn’t even trying, he landed quite a few with ease:

bee in the window

I open it

for both of us

(page 30)

He has a subtle yet strong way of showing how our lives intersect with the natural world, and the impact each can have on the other. He saves a bee, and in doing so, he’s sparing a small piece of himself. Those everyday sadnesses of trapped bees lie in juxtaposition with hope and happiness on the pages. “Wheat fields ablaze with joy” and prairie winds that steal hats are felt just as strongly through his curated words. He writes of dharma and dragonflies opposite a page which encourages the reader to:

Ask the snow

to forgive you—

then leave no trail

Last but not least, another highlight are the illustrations by his writing partner Tré, whose tiny pen-and-ink style drawings show up at just the right time and place to add another beautiful layer to the already outstanding book. The two have proven they are a powerhouse before in their combined haiku/illustration book, “Moonscape,” and it is just as magical to see little glimpses of her art show up here in his solo volume.

In summary, this is truly some of the most recent memorable poetry I’ve experienced in years. After closing this book, I felt like I’d discovered something for the first time. My mind went back to third grade when I first read Carl Sandburg’s poem “Fog.” 40 years and thousands of poems later, it’s hard to recapture the joy that I felt in that classroom of my first favorite poem, and yet, Thomas Vaultonburg has handed me that joy again with “Vanished Roads.” His strict inventory of words, ability to capture single snapshots in time, and his ability to produce a book this wise without a single trace of pretention should be embraced and applauded by old and new fans of poetry alike.

Sean Wright Reviews Vanished Roads By Thomas L. Vaultonburg

 Vanished Roads

by Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Reviewed by Sean Wright

These Haiku

July 2026

Publisher: Wolf Twin Books

Length: 104+ pages

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The book as object

For many readers today, English-language haiku, senryu, and related Japanese short forms exist almost entirely on a screen. Poems arrive through Substack newsletters, Facebook groups, online journals, or social media feeds, often stripped of any physical context. Vanished Roads is therefore refreshing before one even begins reading.

The volume itself is beautifully conceived. Although I am unfamiliar with the American sizing conventions, it measures roughly three-quarters of an A5 page—slightly larger than an iPhone. It feels substantial without being cumbersome: slim enough to slip into a back pocket yet sturdy enough to withstand repeated reading.

The cover illustrations possess a quiet whimsy that immediately reminded me of the work of Australian author and illustrator Kathleen Jennings. They invite rather than overwhelm, suggesting the reflective tone of the poems within.

More surprising is the inclusion of interior artwork. Contemporary English-language haiku collections often present poems without illustration, trusting entirely in the language. Here, however, the illustrations appear sparingly and with considerable restraint. While stylistically diverse, they share a preference for simple black-and-white line work that evokes mood rather than narrative. Their relationship to the poems recalls the long association between haiku and sumi-e painting: minimal marks suggesting far more than they describe.

It is also obvious that genuine care—and no small financial investment—has gone into the production of the volume itself. Haiku publishing has never been a path to riches, which makes these choices all the more admirable. The book is perfect bound, printed on quality matte stock, and finished with a heavy cover that feels durable in the hand.

Perhaps the most pleasing production decision is that every poem occupies its own page.

Many publishers, understandably conscious of production costs, squeeze several poems together. It saves paper, reduces page count, and lowers expenses. Wolf Twin Press has resisted that temptation. Each poem is allowed to breathe. Each page becomes a pause, encouraging the reader to linger before moving on. It almost certainly increased production costs while reducing commercial efficiency, but artistically it is unquestionably the right decision.

As someone deeply interested in the presentation of poetry, I can only tip my hat to the publishing team.

The poems

The collection contains 104 short poems, each afforded its own space.

What immediately struck me is how comfortably Vaultonburg inhabits the porous boundary between modern English-language haiku and senryu. Depending on one’s exposure to contemporary practice—and given that definitions continue to evolve—many readers will disagree about where individual poems belong.

Personally, I find this one of the collection’s greatest strengths. There is personality here. There is emotion. There is wit. There is reflection.

The old caricature that haiku consists solely of objective nature observation has always been an oversimplification of the Japanese tradition, and, frankly, it often produces rather dull English-language poetry. Vaultonburg understands that observation is never neutral. Every observation contains a choice: what to notice, what to omit, and how to frame experience.

Three poems, in particular, illustrate both the breadth of the collection and the consistency of the poet’s voice.

Observation as meditation

empty chapel—

a wasp tapping

at the stained glass

On first reading this appears to be a straightforward observational haiku. Yet, like many of the finest examples of the form, its apparent simplicity conceals remarkable depth.

The opening line immediately establishes stillness.

empty chapel—

The emptiness matters. Had worshippers been present, the poem would become social observation. Instead, the silence transforms the chapel into a contemplative space where the smallest sound becomes significant. The cut after the opening line is beautifully judged. Only then does our attention settle upon a single wasp.

The verb “tapping” is perfectly chosen. It is neither violent nor frantic. It is simply persistent. In the silence of an empty chapel, such a tiny sound becomes almost monumental. What elevates the poem, however, is its central ambiguity. We never know which side of the stained glass the wasp occupies. If it is outside, it seeks entry toward coloured light, continually thwarted by an invisible barrier. If it is inside, it longs to escape into the natural world beyond, with the chapel transformed from sanctuary into prison.

The poem wisely refuses to resolve this uncertainty.

The stained glass itself becomes a threshold between sacred and secular, inside and outside, permanence and transience. Yet those distinctions depend entirely upon where one stands.

Like the glass, the poem itself becomes a threshold. The reader may approach it from either side.

This ambiguity is not a puzzle requiring solution but part of the poem’s architecture. It rewards repeated reading because it continues generating fresh possibilities without ever abandoning the integrity of its observation.

Haiku and senryu meet

sagebrush flat—

a copperhead

corrects my posture

If the previous poem leans toward contemplative haiku, this one occupies the fascinating territory where haiku and senryu become almost indistinguishable.

The opening immediately places us within an unmistakably American landscape.

sagebrush flat—

The image evokes openness, dryness and solitude. Then comes the interruption.

a copperhead

Instantly the emotional atmosphere changes. Before the poem has even finished, the reader’s own body reacts. The final line delivers both humour and truth.

corrects my posture

No one consciously chooses impeccable posture when unexpectedly encountering a venomous snake. The body simply decides. The genius lies in the understated verb.

The snake becomes, momentarily, an involuntary yoga instructor. Yet the humour never depends upon anthropomorphism. The copperhead does nothing except exist. The correction belongs entirely to the speaker. This is why the poem succeeds simultaneously as haiku and senryu. Without the landscape and the snake there is no insight. Without the human response there is no humour.

Nature creates the revelation rather than serving merely as decorative scenery. It is difficult to imagine a better example of how artificial the haiku/senryu divide sometimes becomes.

Beyond haiku

I kept my shape

through stranger weather

than this

This third poem pushes even further. Some readers would no longer consider it haiku or senryu at all. I think they are both right—and missing something.

Formally speaking, this is lyric poetry.

There is no juxtaposition. No seasonal anchor. No single observed moment. Yet its sensibility remains unmistakably rooted in haiku practice. The opening line introduces an image that is simultaneously physical and metaphorical.

I kept my shape

Identity and Integrity. Resilience and Dignity. All remain possible readings.

The second line expands that metaphor beautifully.

through stranger weather

Choosing “stranger” rather than “worse” proves inspired. The emphasis falls not upon suffering but upon unpredictability. The final line quietly opens the poem into universality.

than this

The present difficulty remains unnamed. That omission allows every reader to supply their own illness, grief, political uncertainty or heartbreak. The poem never insists. It trusts. This trust in implication is pure haiku thinking.

Although formally lyric poetry, its DNA remains unmistakably that of someone who has deeply internalised haiku aesthetics: compression, suggestion, emotional restraint, and confidence in silence.

It demonstrates that haiku is not merely a form but a way of seeing.

A consistent poetic voice

Across the collection, what impressed me most was not simply the quality of individual poems but the consistency of Vaultonburg’s voice. There is a recognisable intelligence behind the observations. Humour appears without becoming whimsical. Emotion emerges without sentimentality. Nature is present throughout, yet it is never reduced to decorative scenery or empty seasonal reference.

Instead, the poems repeatedly reveal moments where landscape, perception and human experience intersect.

Modern English-language haiku continues to evolve, and Vanished Roads embraces that evolution rather than policing artificial boundaries between genres. Some poems would comfortably appear in haiku journals. Others lean towards senryu. Still others move into compressed contemporary lyric while retaining unmistakable haiku ancestry.

Rather than weakening the collection, this flexibility gives it its character. The poems never feel like exercises in definition.

They feel, unsurprisingly, like poems.

Verdict

Vanished Roads is an immensely satisfying collection that rewards both casual reading and close study.

Its physical production reflects genuine respect for poetry as an art object. Its design encourages slow reading. Its illustrations complement rather than compete with the poems. Every production decision suggests care rather than economy.

More importantly, the poems themselves possess an unmistakable voice.

Vaultonburg writes confidently across the shifting borders of modern haiku, senryu and short lyric poetry without becoming constrained by debates over taxonomy. The collection is observant, humane, quietly humorous and emotionally intelligent. Even when individual poems move beyond strict haiku conventions, they retain the compression, suggestiveness and trust in the reader that define the best work influenced by the Japanese tradition.

In an era when so much short-form poetry can feel interchangeable, Vanished Roads possesses something rarer: a coherent artistic personality.

That, more than any adherence to formal definition, is what makes the collection memorable.

Highly recommended.

Read Sean Wright's review at These Haiku

Read Magedah Shabo's review of Vanished Roads 

The Story Behind Vanished Roads

 The Story Behind Vanished Roads

In late 2019, my life became much smaller.

A long relationship ended. I lost a home, daily contact with children I loved, longtime friendships, and many of the assumptions I had made about the future. Before I could fully process those changes, the world itself became smaller. The COVID-19 pandemic arrived, closing doors for everyone and making it difficult to rebuild what had already been lost.

Then, in 2020, I suffered a stroke.

Looking back, it seems inevitable that I would find my way to haiku.

At a time when everything around me appeared to be shrinking, I became drawn to a literary form built on simplicity, attention, and presence. I began studying Buddhism and Soto Zen. What started as curiosity gradually became practice. Haiku taught me to pay attention to the moment directly rather than trying to explain it.

My earliest haiku were really just short narrative poems. I brought with me all the habits I had developed as a poet over the previous thirty years. Over time, however, the poems began teaching me something different. Instead of placing myself at the center of every poem, I became more interested in the world itself—the weather, rivers, trees, birds, mountains, silence, and the countless small moments that often pass unnoticed.

During this same period, I reconnected with one of my oldest friends, Tré. Together we began a creative partnership that opened new possibilities in both art and life. Her illustrations appear throughout Vanished Roads, and her presence is woven deeply into the journey the book describes.

Vanished Roads begins with grief, loss, and uncertainty, but it is not a book about remaining lost. It is a book about what happens when the old maps stop working. The title poem contains the image that ultimately gave the collection its name:

"I ask directions—
the wind hands me a map
of vanished roads"

The roads back to my old life no longer existed. The question became whether I could continue the journey anyway.

These poems are my attempt to answer yes.

Vanished Roads will be released June 21, 2026, from Wolf Twin Books.