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Poetry is a vital part of many communities in our state, and the art draws diverse audiences to the power of words, the power of expression and the power of introspection.

I am confident in this claim because I attended or participated in over hundreds of gatherings involving poetry – open mics, magazine launches, school celebrations of spoken word (to name only a few).

The Skagit River Poetry Festival is, of course, a glorious example of this enthusiasm for the art in Washington – probably our highest profile gathering of poets from around the country – and a great model of education, outreach and performance.

Simply, in Washington, in La Conner, we have many opportunities to experience the word in blossom.

I should mention, though, that there are many other great gatherings in our state – GETLIT (Spokane), LitFuse (Tieton), The Chuckanut Writers Conference (Bellingham), to name a few – as well as wonderful bookstores: Elliot Bay, Aunties, Village Books, Trail’s End (Winthrop) and Seaport in LaConner, to name only a few.

The state has wonderful publishers of poetry – Copper Canyon, Scablands, Wave Books, Sagehill Press, Cave Moon and others.

And so, so many talented poets: poets who have won prizes and published many books, poets who have performed at community open mics, poets who have slammed and written sharp sonnets.

So much good news in our state which indicates that the art is alive and flourishing.

Which doesn’t mean that the dark shadows that have affected our National discourse: words demeaned by Tweetish slogans of simple bombast, often aimed at demeaning people or peoples; awful compromises of language in pursuit of profit and perpetuation of privilege over justice and dignity for all; brutal epithets and crass coinages that turn words into reductive missives aimed at making the world smaller. Oh, there is plenty to lament.

But it is spring – “just / spring” as ee cummings tell us, when things are “mud-luscious.” It is April, which is not the “cruelest month,” but a time of poetry pilgrimages (so many wonderful writers coming to La Conner soon) and celebrations all over the state, all over the nation.

My hope is that these are not just emblematic celebrations, but that the word-love, the word-energy is constant and profuse, a sort of spinning vortex that turns and turns – not in some widening gyre of chaos –into a glorious milky way in which the word-stars are cleansed and renewed and brightened.

Idealistic, sure.

But I have heard the “varied carols,” that Walt Whitman mentioned, in the words of the people of our state, and I know that music to be diverse and heartfelt and powerful.

Tod Marshall is a professor at Gonzaga University. From 2016-18, he served as the Washington State Poet Laureate.