The spring equinox is the ideal time to bask in the beauty of Rena Priest's poetry, which often references natural cycles and seasonal shifts. Merging traditional poetic forms and modern sensibilities, the current Washington State Poet Laureate is a boundary blaster in the genre, fearlessly approaching Indigenous rights and environmentalism in her work and employing poetry as a vehicle for social transformation. (If Priest's poetry were an actual vehicle, we think it would be an elegant sports car, accelerating from 0 to 60 in mere seconds...or maybe something more environmentally friendly, like a finely tuned bicycle. We digress.) For this talk, Priest will discuss her two goals during her term as Poet Laureate, "celebrating poetry in Washington’s tribal communities, and using poetry to increase appreciation of the natural world and the threats facing it."