The Secret Medicine
A Creative Writing Workshop in Poetry
The dervish poet Rumi wrote, “There is a secret medicine / given only to those who hurt so hard / they can’t hope. / The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.” I have often been a hopeless recipient of that secret medicine. The universe administers it in surreptitious love letters sent to us as poetry. The medicine awakens a weary spirit to eddies of dust glittering in sunshine and the return of birdsong at winter’s end. In this course offering, we will discuss how poetry expresses our connection to the earth, each other, our human experience, and the infinite beauty of the universe. We will write and explore how poetry nourishes, heals, and loves us.
Rena Priest is an enrolled member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation. She served as Washington State’s 6th Poet Laureate (2021-2023). Her work has been recognized with an Allied Arts Foundation Professional Poets Award and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, Indigenous Nations Poets, Nia Tero, University of Washington Libraries, and the Vadon Foundation. Her debut collection, Patriarchy Blues, received an American Book Award. Her most recent book, Northwest Know-How: Beaches, includes poems, retellings of legends, and fun descriptions of 29 of the most beloved beaches in the Pacific Northwest. She is also the editor of two anthologies, The Larger Voice: Celebrating the Work of Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Literature Fellows and I Sing the Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State. Her work appears widely in print and online. She lives in Bellingham, Washington, on Lhaq’temish homelands.
Learn more: renapriest.com