Poets in schools part of Skagit poetry year round

By Anna Ferdinand

When Rena Priest stood before a crowd at the Lincoln theater Sept. 3, she asked attendees to answer this question: “Where do poems come from?”

A theater took pen to paper, writing to the prompt for five minutes, each person free to travel the pathways down which their brains chose to meander, tracking thoughts on the page.

The Skagit River Poetry Foundation, a co-sponsor of the poetry reading with Priest, Washington state’s poet laureate, helps us answer the question: For students in and around the Skagit Valley who benefit from the Poetry in the Schools program, poetry comes in part from working poets visiting in classrooms where students get to track their thoughts, play with words and surprise themselves with where those thoughts might go. Voila – poetry.

“Having a poet in the classroom is the difference between being exposed to poetry and falling in love with it,” said Linsey Kitchens, English teacher at Sedro-Woolley High School and this year’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction regional teacher of the year. “The Skagit River Poetry Foundation curates poets who resonate with and draw out young people – people who desperately need poetry.”

The SRPF, run by a board of volunteers, hosts poets in seven school districts in Skagit, Whatcom and Island counties.

“Before COVID we placed poets in classrooms for 175 days,” Executive Director Molly McNulty said.

During COVID-19, the foundation brought in teachers virtually. The donor-based organization began in 1998.

In the beginning, the roster included Irish poet Tony Curtis with his guitar and stories of hummingbirds and mental institutions in Ireland; former state poet laureate Sam Green with his soft and magical ways; Tim McNulty with his writing of the natural world in the Olympic Peninsula; and Lorraine Ferra, nun turned poet.

In my own classroom Daemond Arrindell from Queens, now a slam poet in Seattle and a teaching artist, as he phrased it, brought a new, younger voice into the classrooms. At the end of his week teaching writing, Arrindell magically wove together a line from each student in the classroom. They loved it. Students always did. It was like freedom blowing through the door.

“Sometimes we can’t see the barriers in our own classrooms. The poet sees and can free us and the kids, who have just been waiting for this kind of thing,” said Georgia Johnson, a local poet and former culinary arts teacher at La Conner High School. “The poets bring in new ways to tell universal experiences. Many of our SRPF poets have very diverse backgrounds, come from very different communities and know how to connect with our own diverse students. Trust can build very quickly with shared stories.”

The foundation has hosted, among others, Jourdan Keith and Anastacia Renee, the most recent civic poets in Seattle, along with Bellingham-based, Jeffery Morgan, Seattle-based Samar Abulhassan and Seattle slam poet Matt Gano.

In early October the foundation will host the poetry festival in La Conner, bringing in poets from around the world for a three-day festival, the first since the pandemic, allowing students who have studied and worked with the poets, to see that poetry is a living and vibrant art.

McNulty says high school and college students with valid ID get into the festival for free.

“Imagine 33 poets all in one town, bunched together, from Maple Hall to the Methodist Church to Santo Coyote restaurant. Kids running off busses to get to them for six incredible sessions,” Johnson said.

Priest is one of the poets who will read at the festival.

“Rena Priest weaves Lummi history, a mother’s cautionary tales, literary juice, into provocative and profound poetry for everyone,” Johnson said. “Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the beauty, the joy of her words, then gently struck down by the truths in them, that I might be more open, kinder.”

A good definition of poetry if I ever heard one.