Rockford Haiku Hike

For more than six years, photographer Ryan Davis and poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg have explored Rockford one walk at a time. Beginning from the city's virtual geographic center, each outing followed a different direction, revealing familiar streets, forgotten places, and unexpected moments that often go unnoticed in everyday life.

What began as a weekly walk gradually became a collaborative artistic project. Through photography and haiku, Davis and Vaultonburg discovered that simply slowing down and paying attention could transform ordinary neighborhoods into places of wonder, history, and quiet revelation.

From landmarks such as the Faust Hotel, Midway Theatre, and Times Theatre to hidden murals, abandoned spaces, riverbanks, and neighborhood streets, Rockford Haiku Hike celebrates a side of the city that rarely appears in guidebooks. The project invites visitors to experience Rockford not as a destination to rush through, but as a place best discovered on foot.

During Fall Art Scene, October 2–3, 2026, visitors are invited to experience selections from the project through poetry, photography, and the stories behind the walks. This exhibition offers a preview of the forthcoming book, Hike You!: Six Years of Photographs and Haiku from the Heart of Rockford.

Beattie Park

your souls raise the soil

of May Day like the breast of

Mother Earth herself                                                                  

        Magnet Fishing At the Fordham Dam

With Ryan Davis

dragging rock bottom

we reel in rusty remnants

of the Screw City

  Midway

lost somewhere between

now and then, a harsh reminder

the show always ends   

About Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Thomas L. Vaultonburg is a Rockford poet, publisher, and co-founder of Wolf Twin Books. Since first appearing nationally in Exquisite Corpse in 1990, his work has been published in more than 250 literary journals, magazines, and anthologies.

Since turning his attention to haiku in 2020, his poems have appeared in many of the genre's leading international publications, including Modern Haiku, The Heron's Nest, Presence, The Mainichi (Japan), Haiku Canada Review, Wales Haiku Journal, and numerous others.

His 2026 collection, Vanished Roads, explores grief, memory, and the Midwestern landscape through 104 haiku inspired by years of walking the forests, rivers, and neighborhoods of northern Illinois. The book has been reviewed internationally and is indexed by The Haiku Foundation.

Before co-founding Wolf Twin Books with his partner, Tré, Vaultonburg spent more than two decades operating Zombie Logic Press, where he published the early work of numerous Rockford writers and helped bring regional voices to a wider audience.

The Rockford Haiku Hike reflects his belief that paying closer attention to familiar places can transform the way we experience our own community.

The historic Faust Landmark Hotel and Midway Theater in Downtown Rockford shrouded by luminous December fog. This and other photo and haiku collaborations created over the six years of their Rockford Haiku hikes will be published in a book titled Hike You!: Six Years of Photographs and Haiku from the Heart of Rockford,  and individual pieces will be exhibited at Spring Art Scene in 2026.