today in Thorp

If you happen to be in (or headed to) Central Washington today, Saturday, September 17, 2022, meander on over to the bustling metropolis of Thorp for WORD CIRCUS. Presented on the PUNCH Projects Barnstorm Stage by Inland Poetry and the Headlight-Children, Word Circus features poetry, parody, puppets, limericks, whirling hoops, open mic, book fair, and more, plus Ellensburg Poet Laureate Marie Marchand and Ellensburg Arts Treasure Jampa Dorje along with acclaimed poets from Central Washington. Also not to be missed: The Barlow’s Free Museum of Oddities & Curiosities in the gallery! Bring a picnic, a folding chair, your hat. Doors open at NOON.

meet some laureates

Marie Marchand
photo by Sami Jo

Laura Da’
photo by Dean Davis

Sah Pham

CMarie Fuhrman
photo by Dean Davis

Stacy Boe Miller

Fiona Tinwei Lam
photo by Holly Hoffman

Louise Bernice Halfe / Sky Dancer
photo: Library of Parliament

Appointments for the poets laureate of cities, states, and nations do not run on a single schedule. Terms of service vary and some terms have been extended thanks to recent disruptions.

Here are a number of recent-ish appointments in the Cascadia region (for more, see additional poets laureate posts):

Marie Marchand began her one-year term (renewable for up to three years) as the first Poet Laureate of Ellensburg, Washington, in April 2022.

Laura Da’ is the 2022-2023 Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington.

Sah Pham is the 2022/23 Seattle Youth Poet Laureate.

Appointed in 2021, CMarie Fuhrman is the Idaho State Poet Laureate and Writer in Residence.

Stacy Boe Miller is the 2021-2024 Poet Laureate of Moscow, Idaho.

Fiona Tinwei Lam is the 2022-2024 Poet Laureate of Vancouver, British Columbia.

And last, but not least, Louise Bernice Halfe — Sky Dancer became Canada’s Parliamentary Poet Laureate on January 1, 2021, and will serve a two-year term.

We congratulate these poets and thank them for bringing the voice and spirit of poetry into communities across the country.

Reverie*

2017 Merit Award
By Marie Marchand

Poems come to me in the dark
when my eyes are healed
when I do not distinguish
my body from the air.
          In a dream the poems come.

When I awake the words fall
from my skin and I forget
the misty-eyed soliloquies
I’d composed like Keats
          though I remember him.

I always remember John Keats
who led me through the forest
to the Emerald inside the rock
our true love carved in stone.
Holding his hand I traipsed in the wake
of his tousled amber hair.
          He wrote odes among the trees for me.

When you believe in reincarnation
anything is possible.
Love can be written
          centuries apart.

. . . . .
Marie Marchand has been a poet full of passion for 30 years. Her love for John Keats, which she imagines to be reciprocal, is what inspired her winning poem “Reverie.” She tries to make the world a better place by doing small things like stopping the resumption of below-ground testing at the Nevada Desert Test Site. She is the board chair of the local affiliate of National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and works for the Bellingham City Council. She has a Masters Degree from The Iliff School of Theology. Her poetry often explores and intersects with faith. She and her 16-year-old son have lived in Bellingham for 12 years. Her poetry blog is MarieMarchandPoet.

. . . . .
*Copyright 2017 by Marie Marchand. Broadside illustrated by Christian Smith.