Washington Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna will share her new book, One River, a Thousand Voices, and lead a free workshop for new and experienced writers to use their world as inspiration.

Castro Luna’s latest book is presented as an accordion, the words cascading down the pages alongside a blue-ink stream evoking the powerful Columbia River. The poem celebrates the Columbia River’s energy, beauty and power, while honoring the resilience of Native peoples who for millennia have lived along its banks. At this historical juncture with climate change, it is also a call to consider our personal role as stewards of the natural world.

Castro Luna was guest poet for the Exquisite Gorge Project at Maryhill in 2019. She penned an ekphrastic poem about the day artists gathered to steamroll print a 66-foot woodblock of the Columbia River and the communities along it.