If you're in the Port Townsend area on Wednesday, April 28, Samuel Green, Washington's poet laureate 
The free reading starts at 6:30 pm; seating is limited and is available on a first-come first-served basis.
For the very few of you who don't know: Samuel Green is a native of Washington and resides on Waldron Island, a 4 1/2-square-mile island in the San Juans with no public electricity or running water. There, he and his wife, Sally, live in a self-built log cabin and publish Washington poets using a letterpress. Sally does the printing, Sam the binding.
The author of ten collections of poetry, including The Grace of Necessity, Green has appeared in numerous publications; served as a visiting poet in a wide range of settings, including universities, public schools, libraries, mental health centers, correctional facilities and poetry festivals; and been visiting poet and poetry teacher at Seattle University for several years.
In 2007, Green was named the state’s first Poet Laureate, a position established by the Legislature to build awareness and appreciation of poetry across the state. The two-year appointment took him all over the state, helping students of all ages learn to craft poetry.
"I think poetry can be a voice for the voiceless," Green says. "Poetry enables us to speak to ourselves and others and can enable us to speak with greater clarification.”
Green recalls his childhood, when his father quoted Robert Service poems to him. He read and wrote poems in elementary school but was never encouraged to pursue either.
After barely graduating high school because of behavioral problems—he says they were caused by boredom and an inability to be academically competitive—Green never thought about going on to college.
He joined the Coast Guard, patrolled the coast of Vietnam and traveled to Antarctica. While he won a $5 award for submitting a log entry in verse to The Navy Times, he only began to further develop his interest in poetry after he married Sally and began attending Highline Community College.
After pursuing his master's degree at Western Washington University, Green worked odd jobs in Seattle and Bellevue. That's when he realized that 9-to-5 jobs and full-time child care for their infant son, Lonnie, were not what he and Sally wanted in life.
In 1982, they packed up, sold their house and bought property on Waldron. For two years they lived in a canvas Army tent while they finished building the cabin.
The Jefferson County Library is located at 620 Cedar Avenue in Port Hadlock. For more information call 360.385.6544 or visit www.jclibrary.info.