Washington state names its first Native American poet laureate A member of the Lummi Nation, Bellingham writer Rena Priest will bring attention to local poetry, climate change and the loss of vital natural resources. by On the first day of National Poetry Month, Bellingham-based Rena Priest is named the new Washington State Poet Laureate. She'll be a statewide ambassador for poetry during a two-year term. (Hillary Cagey) After years of entering poetry contests and submitting to literary journals, Rena Priest had developed a habit: She would slip a copy of a New Yorker cartoon into the envelope along with her work. The image showed a car with a driver and passenger stuck in a sea of traffic. The caption: “Try honking again.”