Three regional poet laurates converge at one event to celebrate projects, publications and more
To celebrate the publication of her latest book, “Mostly Sweet, Lovely Human Things,” former Ellensburg Poet Laureate Marie Marchand will discuss that unique position with Coeur d’Alene Poet Laureate Jennifer Passaro and Spokane Poet Laureate Mery Noel Smith.
The Liberty Park Library is hosting the event Thursday, and all poet laureates will read their own work, discuss unique projects they took on in their poet laurate tenure, as well as provide time for questions.
Marchand’s book centers around love, nature and the connection between nature and the human psyche, how “growth in springtime, or leaves falling in the fall, how those rhythms are mirrored for our own selves and our own lives and our own psyches.”
Marchand was the first Ellensburg poet laureate, and she said the Ellensburg Arts Commission was very supportive and open to her ideas. She will be talking about her walking chapbook contest, where two years ago, 20 people’s poems were featured on storefront windows of businesses in Ellensburg in April for National Poetry Month. Then, they had a reading where people went from storefront to storefront to read the poems.
“So it was great to see people taking the step to submit and then maybe reading for the first time in public and sharing a poem,” Marchand said. “I think that can be a turning point for people, the first time you share your poem in public can be really powerful.”
Smith said she hoped people bring paper and pencil, ready to take notes.
“Come with an open heart, open mind,” Smith said. “I’m most interested in the work of how we can help each other and provide mutual aid. How we can practice resistance. It just so happens we also get to celebrate too, with Marie’s book, which I think is, like, wonderful, right? Because we’re still making art in the midst of hard, horrible times.”
Smith said her time as Spokane poet laureate has included a wide variety of programming, with an underlying thread of reaching out to people who have traditionally felt their work does not matter.
“I didn’t go to a fancy school,” Smith said. “I didn’t really complete schooling at all in the arts. And so to be offered this position felt incredible. It felt like one for the team, right?
“Like, if the underdogs are, like all of us who are poetry enthusiasts, readers, writers, but maybe we’re not published, or maybe we didn’t go to any schooling of the sort, but still we love it, and still we’re here, and so that that felt like a win for all of all of us.”
In the planning of this event, the three decided that they should also apply to have a panel at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference, which will take place in Baltimore this March.
“Being a city laureate is different than being an academic poet,” Marchand said. “It’s trying to be an ambassador for poetry and have poetry be appealing to a wide swath of people.”