Rena Priest is Washington State’s Poet Laureate. She is an enrolled member of the Lummi Nation, and is the first indigenous person to be appointed state poet laureate. She is a Vadon Foundation Fellow, recipient of an Allied Arts Foundation Professional Poets Award, and she was selected by former laureate Kathleen Flenniken to be part of the 2019 cohort of Jack Straw Writers in Seattle. Her debut collection, Patriarchy Blues, received an American Book Award, and she holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College.