On Sunday, Oct. 22, Washington State Poet Laureate Tod Marshall will visit the Valley for a “Hike and Write” event in the morning and a reading in the afternoon at the Black Dog Arts Cafe in Snoqualmie.
Marshall’s Hike and Write program consists of a short, meditative hike and a guided writing session in response to the walk, starting at 10 a.m. Participants will meet in the parking lot on the corner of SE King Street and Railroad Avenue in Snoqualmie.
Participants should bring writing materials, water, snacks, warm layers and if you choose, something to sit on. The hike will be four or five miles in total length and is expected to end around 1:30 p.m. From 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., Marshall will present a poetry reading followed by a musical performance by Dana Anastasia Hubanks at The Black Dog Arts Cafe, 8062 Railroad Ave., Snoqualmie.
The event is free and open to the public. No previous experience with hiking or writing is needed. Marshall will begin the hike with example poems, a map of proposed land use abutting the Tokul Creek Trail, and then guide participants in letting their sensory experience lead to writing.
At the recent Cascadia Poetry Festival in Tacoma, Marshall led the writing workshop “Not Just Mountains, Forests, and Rivers: Finding Cascadia in Poetry (and Poetry in Cascadia).”
“Stunningly diverse, Cascadia stretches from ocean shores to high desert, from rainforests to channeled scablands; to put it simply, the region includes diverse ecologies and numerous cultural practices,” said Marshall.
The Hike and Write at Tokul Creek Trail offers a window into the local ecologies and cultural practices. The goal of the event is to explore some of the ways a sense of place propels writing. Participants will consider the natural surroundings, try to discover what a Cascadian poetic might mean for each of our practices, and work toward generating a draft of a poem. Marshall hopes to encourage the desire to keep experimenting with writing and poetry.
No pre-registration is required. In case of rain, check the Facebook event page “Hike and Write 2017 with Poet Laureate Tod Marshall” for updates.
In 2015, then-acting Washington state Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen led a Snoqualmie Valley Hike and Write event.
“Hike and Writes are about sharing the practice of walking attentively, and letting that attention lead to writing,” said Austen.
The program debuted in 2014. This event is co-sponsored by Humanities Washington, ArtsWA, and The Black Dog Arts Coalition.
Marshall, a poet and professor at Gonzaga University, is the author most recently of Bugle (2014), which won the Washington State Book Award in 2015. He is also the author of two previous collections, Dare Say (2002) and The Tangled Line (2009), and a collection of interviews with contemporary poets, Range of the Possible (2002). He succeeds Poets Elizabeth Austen (2014-2016), Kathleen Flenniken (2012-2014), and Sam Green (2007-2009).
