Lazzara, Marina: The House Begins An Alphabet

Lithic Press, paperback

Publication Date: March 21, 2026

Publisher Marketing: 

During the Covid19 pandemic lockdown, I wrote a poem inspired by a collage created by my husband, the artist, JLee. I then asked others for artwork. This is Volume One in a study of time & space as a cultural consciousness, private and public property, the home, the metropolis & natural world, the housed & the unhoused, one’s interior world in relationship to the external. In between wildfires and systemic breakdowns, suffering and hardship, people were kind to one another, people played music together distantly. People made bread again. The home/house became both protector and isolator.

I struggled with what would happen when we “returned to normal”. I secretly wished the virus the only thing missing in our return as I watched my neighborhood change with each morning walk and our gradual return to “normal” display inequalities that occur during unrest and disaster. The “downtime” however often exposed how life could be if our time & energy weren’t wasted on profit and consumerism.

This book tracks how I spent my days: working, gardening, walking, long drives to desolate natural environments, parenthood & domestic projects, and the appreciation of creative introspection to help untangle time.

Ultimately, this book is a deep privacy: the necessary self in need of a collective.