Poet Laureate speaks at Library

Elizabeth Austen has spent a portion of her two year term as the Poet Laureate for Washington state visiting every county. Last Friday, she stopped in Cathlamet to meet with students in Audrey Petterson's English class at Wahkiakum High School and spend an hour with local residents at the Cathlamet Library.

Austen received a degree in theatre and worked for more than a decade as an actress speaking the words of classic writers before realizing her love for language reached even deeper. She had a hunger to speak her own.

The road that brought her to Cathlamet on Friday started well before the MFA she received from Antioch College in creative writing. It started in the church at a very young age.

"I grew up in a very devout Roman Catholic family," Austen said. "The first poems I encountered were prayers. My introduction to metaphor, to the music of language and to the power of language was through prayer and the liturgy of the mass. That made a big impression on me as a kid, because as you probably know, in Catholicism, the belief is that the words that the priest speaks transform bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. As an impressionable child, I thought that was some powerful language.

"What I carried into adulthood is that sense of the potency of language."

In Washington, according to Austen, the position of Poet Laureate is as much a job as it is an honor. Poets with one full length book published by a recognized press can apply for the position, along with a proposal for programming. It is up to members of the Washington State Arts Commission and Humanities Washington to make the selection.

Austen shares her gifts and skills with hospital staff at Seattle Children's Hospital and has produced poetry programming for KUOW, an NPR affiliate, for many years.

"I do poetry and reflective writing sessions with the hospital staff," Austen said. "One of the things I've discovered is that there are a lot of people who want what poetry has to offer, once they know what that is. There are lots of people who may read demanding literary fiction or non-fiction but have somehow become intimidated by poetry. I'm trying to issue an invitation to say that poetry is for all of us. Poetry is part of our human birthright. There isn't any culture that has a written or oral tradition that doesn't have a form of poetry.

"I would like to see poetry as a larger part of our cultural conversation," she said.

An hour later, she was on the road again, headed to a writing retreat in Tokeland.