Poetry Well for June features island’s first poet laureate

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, June 8, 2016

The Poetry Well is a monthly column that showcases island poetry. This month includes a poem by Vashon’s inaugural poet laureate Ann Spiers.

December 21

Wind roar and wave roar

replace talk.

Wave crash and brilliant sky

blind us.

A thirteen‑foot tide

stuns us.

Some of us watch.

Some go up to the tavern.

Above, people push in and out

of Thriftway slowly, relaxed.

Below, the northwind

saves itself for us only.

Down here we watch, mark

each high tide off our charts,

twice a day,

each cross a triumph

as if we have won.

“December 21” is a poem from Spiers’ chapbook, “Bunker Trail,” a poetry cycle about living in a beach-front cabin — accessed by Bunker Trail — in one of Vashon’s well known walk-in communities. “Bunker Trail” is Spiers’ fifth chapbook and one of many publications featuring her poetry.

Among the numerous projects Spiers has initiated in the name of poetry is Vashon’s Poetry Post, located in the Village Green. The post — currently stewarded by Spiers — is a cedar pole modeled after Yakima’s Poetry Pole, stewarded by Jim Bodeen of Blue Begonia Press.

Spiers invites everyone to read and pin poems — their own or others — on the Poetry Post, which was erected 10 years ago by an island group that included Loren Sinner Cedar, Vashon Parks’ Village Green and VIGA, Bill Ferris’ Raven’s Isle Woodworks, Bill Mann, Zack Krieger and Spiers. Paul Motoyoshi offered a tea ceremony as a blessing for the post’s dedication on the winter solstice of 2006.

Posted poems are periodically collected and archived by the steward. Those interested in becoming a steward for a season should send an email to spiers@centurytel.net.

— Juli Goetz Morser