Patrick Lane
Patrick Lane has written more than twenty books of poetry. His poetry tends to deal with humanity's harsh treatment of the Earth, and also often touches on the frequent violence of human interrelations. He has received most of Canada's top literary awards, including the Governor General's Award and two National Magazine Awards. Today, his poetry appears in all major Canadian anthologies of English literature. His memoir is titled There is a Season. It received the 2005 British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. Patrick Lane lives near Victoria, British Columbia, with his wife, the poet Lorna Crozier.
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Ted Kooser
A former vice-president for Lincoln Benefit Life, Ted Kooser worked as an insurance representative for many years before retiring and assuming a second career as professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Born in Ames, Iowa, he was the first poet from the Great Plains named United States Poet Laureate (2004-2006).
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Sherman Alexie

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Lorna Crozier
Born in Saskatchewan, Lorna Crozier now lives on Vancouver Island and teaches writing at the University of Victoria where she is a Distiguished Professor and the Chair of the Department of Writing. Inventing the Hawk, published in 1992, received all three of Canada’s national poetry awards: the Governor General's Award, the Pat Lowther Award for the Best Book of Poetry by a Canadian Woman, and the Canadian Authors’ Association Award for poetry. In 2005 she read at a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II to celebrate Saskatchewan’s centennial. She lives with her poet husband, Patrick Lane on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
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Alice Ostriker:
Alicia Ostriker, a poet and critic, has published eleven volumes of poetry, including The Volcano Sequence and No Heaven. Her most recent prose book is Dancing at the Devil’s Party: Essays on Poetry, Politics, and the Erotic. Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, Paris Review, Ontario Review, The Nation, and many other journals and anthologies. Twice a National Book Award finalist, she has also received awards from the Poetry Society of America, the San Francisco Poetry Center, and the Paterson Poetry Center, among others. Ostriker lives in Princeton, is Professor emerita of English at Rutgers University, and currently teaches in the low-residency Poetry MFA program of New England College.
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Alberto Alvaro Rios
Alberto Álvaro Ríos, born in 1952 in Nogales, Arizona, is the author of ten books and chapbooks of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir. His books of poems include, most recently, The Dangerous Shirt, preceded by The Theater of Night, winner of the 2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Award, along with The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body, a finalist for the National Book Award, Teodoro Luna’s Two Kisses, The Lime Orchard Woman, The Warrington Poems, Five Indiscretions, and Whispering to Fool the Wind. His three collections of short stories are, most recently, The Curtain of Trees, along with Pig Cookies, and The Iguana Killer. His memoir about growing up on the Mexico-Arizona border—called Capirotada—won the Latino Literary Hall of Fame Award and, most recently, was designated as the One Book Arizona choice for 2009.
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Blue Flower Arts
Links to a number of featured poets
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Elizabeth Austen
Elizabeth Austen spent her teens and twenties working as an actor and director in cities around the world. After six months of solo rambling in the Andes region of South America she recognized her true nature as an introvert, left the theater and began writing poetry. For the past ten years, she’s been writing meditations on the nature and inter-relatedness of power, sexuality and mortality. Elizabeth served as the Washington “roadshow” poet for 2007, giving readings and workshops in rural areas around the state. She provides weekly commentary on Pacific Northwest poetry readings on KUOW public radio.
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Sam Green
SAMUEL GREEN was born in Sedro-Woolley, Washington, and raised in Anacortes. A 30-year veteran of the Poetry-in-the-Schools program, he has taught in literally hundreds of classrooms, as well as at Southern Utah University, Western Wyoming Community College. He is currently Distinguished Visiting Northwest Writer at Seattle University. His ten collections of poems include Vertebrae: Poems 1972-1996 (EWU Press, 1994) and The Grace of Necessity (Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 2008). He lives with his wife, Sally, with whom he is Co-Editor of the award-winning Brooding Heron Press. In December he was named by Governor Gregoire as the first Poet Laureate for the State of Washington.
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Kim-An Liberman

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Poets.org
An organization with a national membership that supports American poets at all stages of their careers. Provides an information database on recognized contemporary poets.
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American Poetry Review
Bimonthy issues of original poetry, literary criticism, interviews, essays, and social commentary.
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Washington Poetry Association
Serves and inspires individuals and communities across the state by supporting creation, presentation, and appreciation of poetry through events, publications, recognition, and education.
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Seattle Arts and Lectures
Presents the foremost fiction and nonfiction writers from around the world with events and courses that illuminate arts, culture, and a world of ideas.
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Hugo House
A center for the literary arts that supports writers of all ages and backgrounds and promotes the creation of new writing through workshops, courses, and programs.
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The Poetry Foundation
An independent literary organization commited to a vigorous presence for poetry in American culture. Includes news articles, poetry and poet searches.
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American Life in Poetry
Provides publications with free weekly columns featuring contemporary American poems. The mission is to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture.
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