July 28, 2024

Summer Sunday Readings 2024

June 30, 3 pm – Tanya Holtland, Anna Odessa Linzer, Cedar Sigo

July 28, 3 pm – Rae Armantrout, Heather McHugh, Kay Ryan

August 25, 3 pm – Luther Hughes, Erin Malone, Arianne True

September 29, 3 pm – Rick Barot, Melissa Kwasny, Spencer Reece

The Garden – Wilderbee Farm & Meadery
Little Boat XP

Six extraordinary poetry readings, June to September.

Hosted by Wilderbee Farm
223 Cook Avenue Extension
Port Townsend, Washington

This summer Wilderbee Farm will host Poetry on the Salish Sea, monthly poetry readings by poets from around the Olympic Peninsula and beyond. See the full series schedule below and author bios at wilderbeefarm.com.

The readings will be outdoors in the Meadery garden. Seating is limited; get there early or bring a camp chair or blanket.

Poetry on the Salish Sea is sponsored by Wilderbee Farm, The Production Alliance, the Port Townsend Arts Commission, and the Imprint Bookstore.

The series is curated by Kathryn Hunt.

Please support Poetry on the Salish Sea – poetry and poets – with your generous donation to our GoFundMe. Thank you.

July 28, 2024 at 3:00 pm

Wilderbee Farm
223 Cook Avenue Extension

Port Townsend, Washington

Critic David Woo says that Rae Armantrout’s recent book Finalists (Wesleyan 2022) “emanates the radiant astonishment of living thought.” Her 2018 book, Wobble, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her book Versed won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010. Armantrout is the current judge of the Yale Younger Poets Prize. A new book, Go Figure, will appear from Wesleyan in September 2024.

Rae Armantrout
Rae Armantrout
Kay Ryan
Kay Ryan

Born in California in 1945, Kay Ryan is acknowledged as one of the most original voices in the contemporary literary landscape. She is the author of several books of poetry, including Flamingo Watching (2006), The Niagara River (2005), and Say Uncle (2000). Her book The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (2010) won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Ryan’s tightly compressed, rhythmically dense poetry is often compared to that of Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore. She was appointed as U.S. Poet Laureate in 2008 and held the position for two terms, using the appointment to champion community colleges like the one in Marin County, California where she and her partner Carol Adair taught for over thirty years. 

Heather McHugh is a beloved American poet and the author of Dangers, To the Quick, Muddy Matterhorn, and Upgraded to Serious, among other books. McHugh is the recipient of prestigious awards from both the MacArthur Foundation (“Genius Award”) and Griffin Poetry Prize. She began writing poetry at age five and became an expert eavesdropper by the age of twelve, an indispensable gift for a writer. At the age of 17, she entered Harvard University. She taught for 40 years at American colleges and universities, including the University of Washington in Seattle. McHugh wrote: If you’re a poet smitten with English, you love it for its drive and not its drone. The rhythms of a language must be irresistible—while the humdrums of it have to be resisted. 

Heather McHugh
Heather McHugh

Poetry on the Salish Sea 2024 Readings