Rena Priest presents 'Dancing to the Ticking of the Doomsday Clock'

Third Place Books welcomes 6th Washington State Poet Laureate Rena Priest to our Ravenna store to celebrate her new book : a poetry collection juxtaposing the harsh realities of oppression and climate crisis with love and hope.

Presented in partnership with the North Cascades Institute.

This event is free and open to the public. For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured books!

This event is free to attend. Registration is recommended in advance.

Please note: While RSVP helps us anticipate attendance, your RSVP may not guarantee a seat. Seating is first-come, first-served, and all events at our Ravenna neighborhood store are free and open to the public. Only standing room may be available for events with high interest.

We are happy to accommodate any accessibility concerns. Please contact us at [email protected] or call our Ravenna store at (206) 525-2347.

Introducing Dancing to the Ticking of the Doomsday Clock by Rena Priest– a poetry collection for our precarious times that plays love, hope, and optimism against the harsh realities of the climate crisis, extinction, and histories of oppression. With dark humor and deftly executed tangents, readers embark on a poignant journey, oscillating between moments of joy and sorrow.

Priest wields poetic self-empowerment to unmask the shadows of white power structures that often silence or appropriate Indigenous voices. This collection is for both poets and non-poets, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, offering profound insights and emotional resonance.

Rena Priest is a member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation. She served as Washington State's 6th Poet Laureate (2021-2023) and is the author of three books and two anthologies. She has received fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, Indigenous Nations Poets, and University of Washington Libraries. Her work appears in Poetry Magazine, Yellow Medicine Review, Poetry Northwest, Poets.org and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Learn more at renapriest.com.

Snap your fingers, move your hips, step high, then low, then turn around. Keep the rhythm. It all matters. We are all keeping time and so are the trees, the waters, the earth, just a different kind of time than the Doomsday Clock. Rena Priest’s new collection of poetry provides wisdom, humor, and the right words to accompany us in this spiral of becoming through this age of hyper-contradictions. Her compassion is contagious. You will need this book to help make it through to the next dance.

Rena Priest is a citizen of the Lhaq’temish [Lummi] Nation. Priest served as Washington State’s sixth Poet Laureate (2021-2023) and was the first Indigenous person to hold the position. She is an Academy of American Poets Fellow, an Indigenous Nations Poets Fellow, a Maxine Cushing Gray Distinguished Writer, and winner of a Washington State Book Award for poetry. Her new essay collection, Positively Uncivilized, was published (October 2025) as the inaugural winner of the Keepers of the Fire Award from Raven Chronicles Press. It has also been recognized with a Silver Nautilus Award and was selected as one of two titles to represent the State of Washington at the National Book Festival in 2026. Dancing to the Ticking of the Doomsday Clock is her third collection of poetry. She splits time between Bellingham, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.