I want to thank the people of Port Townsend and the Olympic Peninsula for coming out to enjoy Poetry on the Salish Sea in the gardens at Wilderbee Farm for the last two summers. In a few days, Sept. 29, we’ll host the last reading of the 2024 summer season. You’ve been a thoughtful, attentive audience and many of have said how important poetry is to you, some discovering a love of poetry for the first time, others long-time lovers of poetry who couldn’t live without it in their lives.

Poetry on the Salish Sea is dedicated to the power of poetry’s intimate, singular language and its transformative influence on the human heart. We recognize poetry’s capacity to promote empathy and a shared experience of our common humanity. Port Townsend and the Olympic Peninsula have a celebrated legacy as home to poets, literary presses, and publishers. We honor and build on that heritage by bringing individuals and communities — rural, small town, and urban — together to celebrate the natural abundance and strong literary arts of the Salish Sea bioregion.

Here we are at the end of summer already, a few red leaves have appeared on my Japanese maples, and soon we’ll be wearing our puffer jackets and warm socks when we head out of the house. I hope we see you on September 29 at Wilderbee Farm. The fun starts at 3pm, free, and parking onsite.

I’ll leave you with a poem by beloved poet Kay Ryan, a two-time U.S. Poet Laureate, community college teacher, and Pulitzer Prize winner.

Stay warm!

Kathryn Hunt

Co-founder and
curator of Poetry

on the Salish Sea

poetrysalishsea.com