Poet Laureates of the Inland Northwest

Featuring Marie Marchand, Jennifer Passaro & Mery Noel Smith

The Poet Laureates of Ellensburg, Coeur d'Alene, and Spokane gather together to share their work and celebrate Marie Marchand's newest collection, 'Mostly Sweet, Lovely, Human Things.'

About the presenters:

Marie Marchand served as Poet Laureate of Ellensburg, WA from 2022-24. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Crannóg Magazine, Catamaran Literary Reader, California Quarterly, and Tikkun Magazine. She is the author of Gifts to the Attentive and the forthcoming Mostly Sweet, Lovely, Human Things. She is a graduate of Naropa University and The Iliff School of Theology where she studied psychology, religion, and peacemaking.

Mery Noel Smith, devoted mother of five, poet, storyteller, and advocate, is Spokane’s sixth Poet Laureate. Mery is the author of the chapbook Breadcrumbs (2021) and her poems have been nominated for a 2024 Pushcart Prize by Trestle Creek Review. Her work has also been anthologized in Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now and in Pivot and Pause. Mery was a featured artist in the 'Pictures of Poets' exhibit at The Museum of Arts and Culture. As Spokane’s poet laureate, Mery is committed to expanding poetry’s reach into unconventional spaces such as jails, addiction and recovery centers, and community hubs. She says, “Poetry gave me a way back to myself, and I hope to help others find their way home, too.” Mery’s work as Poet Laureate this last year specifically focused on using poetry as a way of empowering and uplifting the youth in Spokane through Spokane Arts and Spark Central. Learn more at www.merynoel.com.

Jennifer Passaro is a poet, nonfiction writer, and stay-at-home mom. Born in Idaho’s Wood River Valley, she has spent much of her life in what Moscow writer Mary Clearman Blew coined the “roughhewn circle,” a cultural and geographic centering that encompasses Idaho, Western Montana, and Eastern Washington. 

She earned her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Montana in 2011, with an emphasis in creative writing, particularly poetry and fiction from the western United States and Native American literature and cultural studies. Her experiences include working on trail crews in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana and out of the Fernan Ranger District on the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. She worked as a reporter for the Coeur d’Alene Press covering Kootenai County and has contributed to the Sandpoint Reader, Trestle Creek Review, and Opt West Literary Magazine, among other publications. Most recently, Jennifer has been a writing instructor at Emerge, where she led poetry workshops and performed at events like Lit Crawl CDA. Jennifer made Coeur d’Alene her home in 2018 and currently resides in the Sanders Beach neighborhood with her husband, their son, and their two old dogs. She is the current CdA Poet Laureate. You can read some of her poetry here. 

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