||| FROM SAN JUAN MAKERS GUILD |||
Orcas Island is honored to have been selected as a host for esteemed Poet Laureate Rena Priest thanks to support from Humanities Washington in collaboration with Arts Washington. As the capstone author for the Earth Day Orcas ‘Spoken Word’ program on Saturday, April 22, Priest will be reading from I Sing the Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State that includes poetry by Orcas Island poet Jill McCabe Johnson.
Rena Priest became the sixth Washington State Poet Laureate in 2021 and her term runs through 2023. Priest’s literary debut, Patriarchy Blues, was honored with the 2018 American Book Award and her most recent work is Sublime Subliminal. A member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation, she is the first Indigenous poet to assume the role.
Each Laureate puts their own unique focus on the position and Priest has focused on two primary goals during her term: celebrating Washington’s tribal communities and using poetry to increase appreciation of the natural world, and the threats facing it.
Priest’s Poet Laureate culminating project is as editor of the newly published collection, I Sing the Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State. She has taught Comparative Cultural Studies and Contemporary American Issues at Western Washington University and Native American Literature at Northwest Indian College. Priest holds a BA in English from Western Washington University and an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in Bellingham, Washington.
Please join us in welcoming Rena Priest to Orcas Island for Earth Day 2023. Sponsored by the San Juan Islands Makers Guild, Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Darvill’s, and the Orcas Island Lit Fest. Seat reservations are recommended and can be made online at
along with reservations for copies of I Sing the Salmon Home.
Reading begins at 3 p.m. in the chapel at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, followed by a book singing and reception at 218 Main Street on the waterfront in Eastsound. Parking is available at Orcas Community Church on Madrona and Main. If you need transportation assistance from the parking lot to the reading site, please contact Island Rides at 360-672-2201 to make a reservation for an EV shuttle.
Great article. Thank you for clarifying for those who might not know what a Poet Laureate is. I met Rena Priest last year at the Spokane GetLit! festival and she was so cool!
I was inspired to write a poem to submit to this anthology. And what do you know? I made it in!
The planet’s wildlife is in mortal peril. We must do what we can to stymie the ongoing effects of the Climate Crisis.