"Welcome to Indian Country" opens Poetry Festival

Some of the 37 guest poets and artists participating in this year’s Skagit River Poetry Festival are crossing oceans to reach La Conner.

Others just have to cross the Rainbow Bridge.

Canadian poet Karen Solie, flying in from St. Andrews, Scotland, is coming the farthest.

Katherine Paul of the band Black Belt Eagle Scout can just stroll down the street. Her dad Kevin Paul can commute from Swinomish Village.

Father and daughter will open the festival’s Thursday, October 6 program, “Welcome to Indian Country: A Reading to Celebrate our First Nation Roots” with music and blessings.

Two of the three Native poets reading are from the Salish Sea. Rena Priest of the Lummi Nation, Poet Laureate of Washington State, is making her second Skagit County appearance, following her recent reading and workshop at the Lincoln Theatre in Mount Vernon.

Sasha LaPointe, poet and author of the memoir “Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk,” is a member of the Nooksack and Upper Skagit tribe. She is also great-granddaughter of educator and Upper Skagit elder Vi Hilbert, who as the last fluent speaker of Lushootseed did so much to conserve the language.

Meskwaki (Red Earth People) tribal member Ray Young Bear is from Iowa. According to the Poetry Foundation website, his poetry is often surreal and informed by the Meskwaki culture, and his sources are myth, history, and dreams.

“Ska je tah lo” Lona Wilbur will definitely be in the audience. “I enjoy Indian writers from our communities, whose writing reflects our lives as Tribal people,” she said. “Their words give life to us as Indian-born peoples.”

“Welcome to Indian Country” and Thursday night’s Poet’s Soiree Dinner will be held at Maple Hall, the central gathering point for the festival and its Friday and Saturday evening readings.

The many readings and panel discussions planned for Friday, October 7 and Saturday, October 8 will take place around town at the Museum of Northwest Art, the Skagit County Historical Museum, the Methodist Church, Santo Coyote Restaurant, the Civic Garden Club, the La Conner Country Inn and the Channel Lodge.

Friday’s sessions are for high school students like La Conner High School senior Rachel Haley. As a middle school student, she always looked forward to the week that a Skagit River Poetry Project poet taught her English class.

“They definitely opened the doors for me, and I actually started my own poetry journal after that,” she said. “I’ve been writing in that for at least five years.”

She’s excited about attending sessions on Friday and encountering new voices and inspiration.

“We do the festival for the kids,” said Skagit River Poetry Foundation Executive Director Molly McNulty. “The students in our Poets in the Schools program get to rub elbows with the poets they read in their classrooms.”

Students with a valid school ID can also attend readings and sessions for general ticket holders, which begin at 3:30 p.m. Friday and continue through Saturday afternoon October 8. Sessions tackle themes like humor, grief and healing in poetry, as well as poetry about love, tragedy, work, sins and virtues, and advocacy and witness.

“A committee reads the poets and figures out who fits together and what a captivating subject would be,” said McNulty. “We keep it fairly loose so we don’t box in the poets, but we like to give them and the audience a guide.”

At Friday night’s Gathering of Poets, each participant reads one poem. An after-hours open mike follows.

The Saturday evening reading, “Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection” features nationally known poets Lorna Crozier, Terrance Hayes, Jane Hirschfield and Karen Solie.

“All our featured poets are remarkable people whose voices are making a huge difference in our country,” said McNulty.

A full festival pass is $300 and entitles the bearer to hear all the poets and sessions plus the Thursday night soiree and reading. Day passes are also available – $80 for Friday, $95 for Saturday. A Friday-Saturday pass costs $150.

A ticket to the “Welcome to Indian Country” on Thursday night, not including the soiree, is $50.

Tickets may be purchased online at skagitriverpoetry.org/festival/festival-tickets/ or at Maple Hall. To volunteer to set up, take down and host venues and a myriad of other essential tasks, see skagitriverpoetry.org/about/volunteer/ or call Molly McNulty at 360-840-1452.

“The festival always costs us more than we take in,” McNulty said. “It’s a gift we give our community, because we are so passionate about poetry and poets in the schools.”