First Ever Salish Sea Poetry Festival to Take Place in Bellingham, WA on November 7-9

This November, Downtown Bellingham will host the inaugural Salish Sea Poetry Festival, a smorgasbord of free readings and workshops, poetry-themed food and drink, art installations, poetry nature walks, poetry improv, pop-up poetry performances, poetic movie screenings, and more. The festival will culminate with the 2025 Salish Sea Poetry Slam, an audience-rated poetry showdown featuring some of the most celebrated poets and spoken word artists in the Pacific Northwest. 

The immersive festival is the first of its kind for Bellingham, with an aim to bring poetry straight into the community in new and unexpected ways.

Brought to you by the non-profit Whatcom Poetry Series, which also facilitates the long-running Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest, the Salish Sea Poetry Festival continues its mission of bringing poetry to the people.

Throughout the weekend, we hope to create new poetry lovers by bringing poetry into the busy weekend lives of locals and visitors. To that end, poetry performances will be where the people are: taking their morning walk at Boulevard Park, grabbing a beer with friends at Structures Brewing, catching a movie at Pickford Cinema, looking to spice things up at WinkWink, checking out improv at the Upfront Theatre, etc. Because we want folks to discover/rediscover poetry, almost all events are free and open to the public.

The Salish Sea Poetry Festival Committee, founded by local poets Elizabeth Vignali and Danny Canham, has already offered the community a preview of what the festival will look and feel like. Somewhere between a pub crawl and a flash mob, the popular Poetry Pub Crawl series has poets and attendees descend on venue partners, perform a 45-minute poetry reading, and then move on to the next spot. In this way, patrons of Greene’s Corner, Kulshan, Otherlands, El Suenita, Honey Moon, L&L Libations, Ramble Tamble, and even 20th Century Bowl were treated to impromptu art by local poets.

The Salish Sea Poetry Festival Committee is eager to keep exploring, celebrating, and supporting new ways to connect people with poetry here in Whatcom County and beyond.

Find out more on via Instagram @salishseapoetry on the Salish Sea Poetry Festival Facebook page, or on their website at www.whatcompoetryseries.com/salish-sea-poetry-festival