About Sheboygan Poet Laureate
The Sheboygan Poet Laureate program was founded by Mayor Mike Vandersteen in 2020 following approval from the Mead Library Board and Common Council. The position is a voluntary role officially appointed by the mayor and supported in full by the Mead Library Foundation. The purpose of the role is to serve as an ambassador of the literary arts for Sheboygan and to promote poetry throughout the community.
The Office of the Mayor held a call for applications for the 2026-2029 term from November 6, 2025 to November 24, 2025.
Anneliese Finke was named the second Sheboygan Poet Laureate on January 19, 2026, at the Twentieth Regular Common Council Meeting.
About Anneliese Finke
Anneliese Finke describes her writing as a sort of literal surrealism or magical realism – if she could ask one thing of a reader, it would be to really try to picture what she’s describing in her poetry. Like Chagall’s figures who float through the air, she is trying to capture a world that is both clear and real but also strange and magical – ordinary and extraordinary all at once – as though perhaps these two things are not as different as we assume.
As Sheboygan’s second Poet Laureate, she wants to create projects that bring poetry into the wider community. Like murals painted on the sides of buildings or buskers playing guitar in the park, poetry should be something that people encounter in their everyday lives.
Anneliese Finke received a BA in creative writing from Bard College at Simon’s Rock and an MFA in poetry from the University of Maryland. She’s a former Peace Corps volunteer in Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan; she has also worked as a teacher, a librarian, a bookkeeper, and as the archivist for the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Ruminate, The Georgetown Review, the anthology The Lake Is Mother To Us All, and Creative Wisconsin. Find her online at Anneliese Finke | Instagram, Facebook | Linktree.
Click to watch Anneliese’s induction and recitation of North 7 Night Bus
North 7 Night Bus Living rooms glow like beacons as we pass through the dark outside, the barest glimpses of lives, lives, lives. And suddenly, I’m filled with warmth— I want to go, I want to enter each one like a lonely ghost, filled with fondness for these strangers and their places, televisions tuned to who-knows-what, walls with shelves, pictures, photos, souvenirs or Goodwill knick-knacks, couches chosen for comfort or for looks, all passing too quickly to truly see. Love is easy at this distance— for ghosts, for the dead who gather outside our windows, where even, on the coldest night, their breath leaves no trace.
Past Poet Laureates:
Lisa Vihos served as the first ever Sheboygan Poet Laureate since June 2020. She has been a resident of the City of Sheboygan since 2002 and is currently on the staff of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center as Grants Manager. Lisa’s poems have appeared in many poetry journals, both print and online, and she has four chapbooks of her poems published, as well as two poetry anthologies that she edited. Since 2008, Lisa has received numerous awards for her poems from the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. Lisa’s focus has always been to encourage personal transformation through poetry and the visual arts and she is well-versed at bringing people of all ages together to develop creative, vibrant communities.
Visit Lisa’s website at lisavihos.com
At the June 15, 2020 Common Council meeting, Mayor Vandersteen presented a Proclamation to announce Lisa Vihos as the first Sheboygan Poet Laureate.
Watch the video of the presentation
Read the poem “In the Pick n’ Save Parking Lot”
Poems by Lisa:
►Poem of the month for April 2025: “A Nonet* in Praise of Poetry“
►Poem of the month for March 2025: “Dear Lisa”
►Poem of the month for February 2025: “Hi Mom, I’ll Be Back”
►Poem of the month for January 2025: “When The Moon Taps Your Window”
►Poem of the month for December 2024: “To a Seed in Winter”
►Poem of the month for November 2024: “Some Days”
►Poem of the month for September 2024: “Haiku for Students and Poets”
►Poem of the month for August 2024: “Mid-Summer Serenade”
►Poem of the month for July 2024: “Four Haiku for a Day in Summer”
►Poem of the month for June 2024: “I Went for a Hike in Nature”
►Poem of the month for May 2024: “Thank You, Dear Earth”
►Poem of the month for April 2024: “Four Haiku for April”
►Poem of the month for March 2024: “Four Haiku for Early Spring”
►Poem of the month for February 2024: “A Call to Leap”
►Poem of the month for January 2024: “Prayer for the New Year”
►Poem of the month for December 2023: “Six Haiku from November”
►Poem of the month for November 2023: “Eight Haiku for Autumn”
►Poem of the month for October 2023: “To Those Who Have Known Me”
►Poem of the month for September 2023: “The Song of the Old Tower”
►Poem of the month for August 2023: “Dollar Value”
►Poem of the month for July 2023: “Welcome Sister”
►Poem of the month for June 2023: “My Place is You”
►Poem of the month for May 2023: “The Cloth of You”
►Poem of the month for April 2023: “Everything After”
►Poem of the month for March 2023: “March Limerick”
►Poem of the month for February 2023: “Love, Uncontainable “
►Poem of the month for January 2023: “May Each One Flow “
►Poem of the month for December 2022: “One Snow Day, Before Christmas “
►Poem of the month for November 2022: “A Deer in the Evening Field “
►Poem of the month for October 2022: “Flying Kites”
►Poem of the month for September 2022: “Dear Water #1”
►Poem of the month for August 2022: “Whisper”
►Poem of the month for May 2022: “Love Letter for Vincent”
►Poem of the month for April 2022: “The New House Reveals Itself”
►Poem of the month for March 2022: “To Measure Time”
►Poem of the month for February 2022: “The Moles in Winter”
►Poem of the month for January 2022: “The New Present”
►Poem of the month for December 2021: “Goods”
►Poem of the month for November 2021: “The Wind Has a Way”
►Poem of the month for October 2021: “Endangered Species”
►Recap of “Together Again” Poetry Event on September 25, 2021
►Poem of the month for September 2021: “The First Day of School”
►Poem of the month for August 2021: “In Praise of Pollinators”
►Poem of the month for July 2021: “Acrostic for Ruth DeYoung Kohler II”
►Poem of the month for June 2021: “The Path I Walk”
►Poem of the month for May 2021: “If a City”
►Poem of the month for April 2021: “The Coming of Spring”
►“Poetry on Air” – Mead Community Radio program
►Poem of the month for March 2021: “March Villanelle”
►Poem of the month for February 2021: “Orchid”
►Poem of the month for January 2021: “Advice from the Snow”
►Poem of the month for December 2020: “Sheboygan Sonnet #1 on the Occasion of the Lighting of the Tree”
►Poem of the month for November 2020: “Looking for Joy”
►Poem of the month for October 2020: “Memory of My Father at the Lake”
►Poem of the month for September 2020: “50% Off Summer”
►Poem of the month for August 2020: “Learning the Language”
In March 2020, the Mead Library Board and the Common Council approved the voluntary portion of Sheboygan Poet Laureate.