The Lenfest Center Presents an Evening of Poetry Reading with Rena Priest Washington’s first indigenous State Poet Laureate will deliver a reading on Oct. 1 as part of the Lenfest Center’s Outreach & Engagement Series.
The Lenfest Center at Washington and Lee University presents an evening of poetry reading with Rena Priest, an enrolled member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation and Washington’s first indigenous State Poet Laureate, on Oct. 1 at 5:30 p.m. in the Stan Kamen Gallery located in the lobby of the Lenfest Center for the Arts.
The event is free and open to the public and is part of the Lenfest Center’s Outreach & Engagement (O&E) Series.
Priest’s debut poetry collection, “Patriarchy Blues” (2017), received an American Book Award and her second collection, “Sublime Subliminal” (2018), was published as the finalist for the Floating Bride Press Chapbook Award.
“I think there’s a way that poetry connects people,” Priest said. “It’s very special — it’s like a soul connection, but it’s not invasive in any way. The way that it works is subtle. It’s gentle, but it’s deep and profound.”
Priest also believes in the power of poetry to enact change, and that it can be used to raise environmental protection awareness for many issues, including climate change.
“Poetry is so versatile, and maybe it’s even the best medium to use,” Priest said. “It allows for associative leaps and opens a person’s willingness to accept something that maybe they really wouldn’t want to look at previously. It’s almost like it can trick you through song and imagery.”
As the state of Washington’s sixth Poet Laureate, Priest released a “celebratory guide” to the Pacific Northwest coast, visiting over 29 acres from Semiahmoo to Coos Bay, Oregon, and focusing on the many different distinctions and details of the coasts. Her third book, “Northwest Know-How: Beaches” (2022), includes poems, retellings of legends and fun descriptions of the region’s beaches. As an ambassador to Washington state, Priest plans to move beyond the page and into the parks themselves by placing poem placards alongside historical and scientific markers.
Priest also edited “I Sing the Salmon Home” (2023), a distinctive intergenerational poetry collection with contributions from more than 150 Washington poets, all inspired by the treasured salmon of the Pacific Northwest. Diverse voices join together in poems that praise the salmon’s heroic journey, observing the threats salmon face from pollution, dams and warming oceans. As Priest writes in the preface: “It is my hope that the poems in this collection will carry into the hearts of readers a wish to preserve and protect the gifts of salmon bestowed by a beautiful living earth; that they will provide the spark of life to carry us into a new cycle. May their good work continue to sing the salmon home.”
Priest is the recipient of an Allied Arts Foundation Poetry Award and a fellowship from the Vadon Foundation, which supports innovative community-based initiatives that sustain healthy and thriving indigenous nations. In 2022, she was named both the Indigenous Nations Poets Fellow and the Maxine Cushing Gray Distinguished Writing Fellow. Priest holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College.
Priest’s poetry reading is sponsored in part by the Class of 1964 Performing Arts Fund, W&L’s Native American Indigenous Cohort within the Office of Inclusion and Engagement, the Department of Art and Art History, the Department of Theater, Dance, and Film Studies, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program and the Pauline B. and Paul D. Pickens Fund for the Performing Arts.
For a full list of this season’s events and performances, visit the Lenfest Center’s website.
The Lenfest Center for the Arts, home of the Department of Theater, Dance, and Film Studies and the Department of Music and Department of Art and Art History is a multi-use facility designed and equipped to accommodate a broad spectrum of the performing arts, including theater, musical theater, opera and operetta, choral and band music, dance and performance art in one energizing complex.
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