Skagit River Poetry Festival Comes to La Conner!

The 5th biennial Skagit River Poetry Festival is coming to La Conner May 15-17, 2008. Jane Hirshfield will be the guest poet Thursday evening, 7:30 pm at Maple Hall. Washington State Poet Laureate Samuel Green is also included in the lineup of speakers.

The Skagit River Poetry project began in 1998, the result of a conversation between leaders from seven rural school districts in Skagit County, Washington. These leaders hoped to create a project which would promote high literacy standards with poetry the natural vehicle. From 1998 to the present, more than 10,000 local students have played with words while reading and writing poetry with professional poets in the classroom. Contributing poets have modeled instructional strategies to teachers and prepared a bank of poetry lessons published on this website. The companion event for this in-class work is the biennial Skagit River Poetry Festival. Beginning in 2000, a combination of regional and national poets have traveled to picturesque La Conner, Wash. for public readings, workshops, and panels offered over two days.

Festival Opening Poet: Jane Hirshfield's poetry speaks to the central issues of human existence-desire and loss, impermanence and beauty, the many dimensions of our connection to others and to the creatures and objects with which we share our lives. Demonstrating with quiet authority what it means to awaken into the full capacities of attention, her work sets forth a hard-won affirmation of our human fate. Described by reviewers as "radiant and passionate," "ethically aware," "insightful and eloquent," and as conveying "a succinct wisdom," her work ranges from the metaphysical and passionate to the political and scientific to the subtle unfolding of daily life. Her book of essays on the "mind of poetry" and three anthologies recording the work of women poets from the past are each considered classics in their fields. An intimate, profound, and generous master of her art, Hirshfield has been a visiting professor at UC Berkeley and elsewhere, a member of the Bennington College MFA faculty, and has been received with wide acclaim in her many appearances at writers conferences, literary centers, and festivals both in this country and abroad. Jane Hirshfield is one of our finest, most memorable contemporary poets ~The American Poet May 15, 2008 7:30 PM Tickets: $15 Call: 1-888-290-6398 Skagit River Poetry Festival 2008 Schedule