Poet Laureate Program
The City understands the value of the literary arts in shaping a vibrant, inclusive, and creative community, and is committed to uplifting diverse poetic voices across neighborhoods and generations.
The Poet Laureate Program recognizes and supports an outstanding local poet who serves as a volunteer ambassador for poetry, literature, and the arts. The program aims to inspire community engagement, promote the literary arts, and celebrate the City’s cultural richness through the spoken and written word.
Background
On January 20, 2022, the City formally named Cynthia Pratt as its inaugural Poet Laureate through an official proclamation. This proclamation honors her lifelong dedication to poetry, education, and community engagement. This appointment reflects the City’s commitment to fostering literary arts and celebrating the power of poetry to inspire, connect, and uplift.
Looking to the future, the City and Cynthia created a Poet Laureate Program Policy to continue and expand the program, including new artists. On December 2, 2025, the City Council adopted the Policy.
About Cynthia Pratt
Cynthia Pratt (she/her) is one of the founding members of the Olympia Poetry Network’s board which has been in existence for 35 years. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous literary journals including Third Wednesday and Willows Wept Review, and in six anthologies, including Humana Obscura’s Blue Anthology. She also has poems in two other upcoming anthologies: Bird Brains: A Lyrical Guide to Washington State Birds and Casting Lines. Her manuscript, Celestial Drift¸ was published in 2016. Her forthcoming manuscript, That Wild Knocking, published by Finishing Line Press, is scheduled for publication in 2026, A former Lacey Councilmember and Deputy Mayor of the City of Lacey for 12 years, her term ended in December 2021. She is the first Poet Laureate of Lacey as of 2022. She reads too many murder mysteries and talks to birds. They rarely talk back to her.
Visit her website here.
In Her Words: Cynthia Pratt on the Importance of Poetry
Poetry is more than just beautiful language on a page, it is a powerful way of seeing and feeling the world. For Cynthia Pratt, Poet Laureate of the City of Lacey, poetry opens a door to deeper understanding. It connects us to place, to people, and to the larger human experience in ways that few other forms of expression can.
“Poetry is a door to how one thinks about the world,” Pratt explains, “a landscape, or a specific location, as well as the broader human experience expressed in words that encapsulate our emotions.” In just a few lines, poetry can ground us in a particular moment or transport us entirely, allowing us to experience someone else’s perspective, or our own, more fully.
Pratt sees poetry as deeply sensory, reaching beyond the intellect to evoke what we feel in our bodies. “A poem evokes through words what we feel through our senses: hearing, touch, taste, sight, smell, and that sixth sense, proprioception, the tracking of where our body parts are in space.” Through this full-body engagement, poems invite readers to slow down and become aware not only of their surroundings but also of their inner world.
Because of this, she says, poetry speaks to our whole selves. “It engages our heart, head, and attitude, bringing us joy, soothing our sorrows, and making us think about what is happening now.” A poem can offer comfort in grief, delight in beauty, or pause for reflection in times of uncertainty.
Perhaps most powerfully, poetry nudges us toward what might be. “It provokes us into thinking about other possibilities,” Pratt says, “and it does this most often in just a few words.” That economy of language — so precise and yet so expansive — is what makes poetry such a vital art form in today’s fast-moving world.
Cynthia Pratt’s reflections remind us that poetry is not just for literary circles, it’s a human practice, accessible to all, that calls us to listen, feel, and imagine. Whether reading or writing, poetry helps us find meaning, connection, and perhaps even transformation.
Poetry and Public Readings
Forest Walk
A Poem for the City of Lacey to Celebrate National Poetry Month, April 2022
Finally, my walk, delayed by heavy snow turning into downpour,
gloved and covered with a heavy coat to ward off winter’s bitter
chill, takes me to my favorite space, where fir and cedar soar.
In the distance I stop to hear around the bend, a northern flicker,
the sound strange in this forest of small birds, this thrum,
mixed in amongst the trees and chirping sounds of this early day.
Rhythmic, the tapping stops and starts again, the humdrum
morning awakes to common calls: siskin, chickadees, Steller jays.
Light, a yellow glow, now breaks through the trees transforming
ice to puddles, frost to glistening crystals. Above, a limb
hangs Old Man’s Beard, lichen like an aged wizard, disarming
in its rarity. A chance encounter, I look up, light, now growing dim.
A moment’s break in bird song, I lean my palm on rough, wet bark.
In the silence, brief silence, a strum, steady strum, of my beating heart.
A poem by the City of Lacey’s Poet Laureate, Cynthia R. Pratt. This poem was accepted and published by Blue Heron Review, Issue 17, Fall 2023
My City
A Poem for the City of Lacey to Celebrate National Poetry Month, April 2023
Start with the welcoming sign,
a child flying a kite, designating Lacey,
a place you love. Then spin.
Name that space. Imagine bike rides down
Karen Fraser Woodland Trail, or the Chehalis
Western, even William Ives Trail.
Dream yourself standing in Huntamer Park or
Wonderwood, the RAC or maybe Freddy’s, St. Martin’s,
your favorite coffee bar you insist is the best because
you know we expect coffee made exactly
the way we want it. You could land on the
coordinates of the best ethnic food around,
a special nail salon, hair salon, cupcake bakery,
and of course, your home improvement store
with its clamps and bolts and 2 by 4s.
Start here, with your city, Lacey, a place you love.
Begin with what’s around you, this city, and
give yourselves a thumbs up. Make
yours and my city, a locality that hugs all its people,
the woohoo when you walk or ride a bus, or
see a happy face from a stranger, a child playing
hopscotch with her friends, a friend you meet
up with after the long haul of the pandemic.
Lacey, a place I love, as so many of my neighbors do,
showcasing little things: city staff in their work trucks
waving as they pass by you doing your morning walk,
our police officers helping kids shop for Christmas,
investing in our veterans, giving them support
through the Veterans Hub, and before the
pandemic, the RAC rocking with military
families, their kids playing games, smiling, and laughing.
But I challenge you to think bigger and broader, because
place extends beyond a coordinate, or an actual impression.
Friends, neighbors, business owners of Lacey,
love this city. You are our city’s footprint, the
future that makes my city, and yours, the permanent ink
that draws the topography on this map.
Read the legends on the chart.
It says we are here to protect, to give back.
Lacey, a place of love, stay a compassionate city,
where we celebrate, connect, and create a better
community, where acts of compassion memorialize
what we stand for, these wrapped up gifts to others,
those 100,000 acts of kindness, or to those in need by
helping provide a place that fills baskets of food.
We are not an old city, but a proud city, a city that
grows by providing hope to those that need hope
or services: roads, utilities, safety, but most of all,
offering more than basics, a lifestyle that makes us
whole, where we, ourselves, are The City,
where we all offer to help us flourish into the
unique place we all love. That remains, and will
remain, the coordinates called my hometown.
All The Reasons I Love You
To the City of Lacey 2024
What is life if it is not home,
the yard or street we live on,
the neighbors that we know,
and don’t know but remember
their curly brown-haired girl
singing a school song with her
mother, back now because of
the end of the day.
What is life if it isn’t the cherry
trees in full bloom around
the corner from our street,
or that noisy muscle car
that drives too fast and you
worry about the child not
paying attention to her where-
abouts. Still, it could be puddles
pooling around the City’s drains
as we walk our one-half hour walk
around the neighborhood, hard
rain not discouraging us, but
a reminder that even uninvited,
the dampness soaks into water-
courses below our feet. Even
the engineers balance the good
with the bad, because water
is ambrosia as we turn on our taps.
oh, City that I write Valentines cards
to as if you were my teenage crushes,
I know you are not perfect. Of course,
there are potholes and cracks here and there
that need smoothing, a few rocks to stub
my toes against. Still, all I see are
hummingbirds at the feeder, children
joyfully skipping home, a playground filled
with families, or those that come to a park
to play baseball, a pickup basketball game,
pickleball or just enjoy the outdoors.
What is love but this City with all its fullness:
the quiet at night, the sun pushing up each
sunrise to show off Mt. Rainier so close,
the too busy bustle of vehicles, their
drivers trying not to be late for work,
shops being opened at the beginning
of the day, their keepers smiling as
they welcome their first customer.
What is the full breath of life in this city
if not the hard knots of all lives, those
unfortunates needing places to sleep, those
that struggle because of a lost job, or
those coming home after being overseas
in whatever conflict they have been sent.
I offer you these words, oh City with its
bumps and wrinkles, it’s glistening
skin as if new-born, it’s model-perfect
wedding day moments, and you with
your old limps and needed canes.
I ask you, how can I not smile and laugh,
you, my City who has stood by me like
love, an echo of good memories? I embrace
you hard to remember your stanch shoulders
that will be there for me when I need you,
and I will always hold you tenderly in my arms.
False Starts and Strong Persistence
A very brief history, not in any order
The name, Lacey, conjures up a texture of frills
and fine thread, but the truth lies light as a handful
of Cheez It’s. How can we not smile at history’s
dichotomy, that of being named after a Justice of Peace
con man, married to two women at once?
Still, even the truth becomes only a sliver of what
Breezes through our streets, especially when heat
Reminds us to relax. Think of lakes with wooden
slides transporting tourists into still water,
or the station stop to Woodland Park and
sulky horse races which never quite took off despite
newspapers listing the track as one of the best.
Oh Issac Ellis, how could you have known that people are
fickle? Still, the area became a successful fairground
for a couple of years, and just so you know,
promoted by a widowed woman. Yes, the other gender.
The songbirds here trill during warm picnic summers,
and music reverberated on special evenings in our
entertainment halls. The Evergreen Ballroom, starting
in the Depression, lasted seven decades. A vessel of magic
notes. Olympia may think itself the entertainment destination
of the region, but it can’t compare to
having Fred Astaire, or Janis Joplin.
Railroads and their cars were our legend through the 70’s,
Those converted diners and dance floors, a shiny glare
with a stage and microphone that shone with local names,
willing to raise their voice: those Richard’s Roundhouse days,
where so many like myself, hustled and bumped
on the dance floor with a grudging spouse not crazy about
dancing, but twisting hips and lifting up feet
to the beat that rocked down Sleater-Kinney Street.
Speaking of which, let’s not forget Sleater-Kinney singing
from a garage on the roadway with their name,
even when they forgot they started here in Lacey.
History here is an embroidery of color and intricate knots.
This old train stop is a gem. Even our name, Lacey in Old French,
means cheerful, a time to remember, a time to smile,
dance and sing. The lacing that braids us all together.
Cords us into the future so that this very moment as I am reading
you this poem, becomes a past where the City ties each strand
to display us as fine lace, but keeps spooling forward,
giving, reaching out.
The Christian bible defines Lacey as, “Healer”,
as in a meaning to provide us with a music hall filled
with well-being, an ointment over all of us,
leaving us humming, a song into the future
where it is one of the Top 40’s to return to.
I name it, “Location, Location, Lacey,”
sung with Taylor Swift’s, beginning line,
“I promise you will never find another one of me,”
all that despite our nefarious namesake’s past.
A Poem for the City of Lacey, during National Poetry Month, April 2025 by City of Lacey’s Poet Laureate, Cynthia R. Pratt.
After We Have Said Goodbye
To Scott Spence on His Way To Astoria Oregon, Home of the Goonies
As you drive away, notice the rain on the car glass,
how it schools near the edge of your vision. Notice the
cedars, their branches heavy as a gill net,
glistening with their catch, how they dip toward
your car as it eases by. If these trees were fishermen,
pulling hard against their boughs, the net made of needles,
line taut, then slack when that fish yanks loose,
they would say the best ones get away.
This is what you leave, not all dampness and drips,
all musky evergreens, driving home late and tired,
but rather, sun coming out, and raindrops
letting go from branches as they shake free of a limb,
bark crunching into your back as you lean
against a tree watching the extra innings of
high school baseball practices, or those hard
bleachers filled with parents cheering at
football or basketball games, those nights
when you stayed late at work, but left with the
satisfaction of a project well done and everyone,
including constituents, happy.
Your car now points south to new adventures,
to fishing boats offshore, charters waiting for you
to try your hand at reeling in chinook, the foghorn
signaling anglers home. It is the Coast Guard in the bay,
passing by a dew-damp window as you drink
wine with family and new friends.
When you become settled in Astoria,
order salmon, burn evergreen candles,
look out that window and listen for seagulls. Watch TV.
Think about the history of this ocean-side city,
the Astoria Column, that hilltop monument looming
above you with murals and bird’s-eye views.
During your spare time, search for Austrian
glass beads and falconry bells once traded with
Native Americans. But you must look also for that
map with the Goonies as your guide.
Of course, by now you know that Astoria is the oldest
city in Oregon, established in 1811, named after
John Jacob Astor, whose fur trading company
founded Fort Astoria. Still, Astoria almost burned
down, because of the timber piers that comprised
most of your future city, including under sidewalks.
Spend time in the Columbia River Maritime Museum
to see how the past revived itself to what is now the present.
So I will end these words knowing Astoria
under your new leadership will be
wiser, but will still make you smile at the
idiosyncrasies of this area, and just so you know
we all are crossing our fingers that someone
will cast you in one of their movie remakes
of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV,
as a replacement for Corey Feldman as Donetello
because as we all know, Donetello is the smartest, and
usually the gentlest of those turtles. We all will be watching,
and laughing, but also remembering your 23 years,
because yes, we will miss you.
Poem for the City of Lacey’s City Manager on his move to Astoria, OR. Poem by City of Lacey’s Poet Laureate, Cynthia R. Pratt. This poem was accepted and published by The Broken City, the Winter 2023, Issue 33.
Welcome
To our Sister City Association delegation from Minsk Mazowiecki, Poland, from the City of Lacey
We offer you handshakes across our continents and
greet you as we would our own sisters or brothers.
I turn to this occasion as if it were a beloved book
that tells the story of friendship, and mutual
experiences. That is how I picture our sister city
from Minsk Mazowiecki, each return brings a
recognition of commonality, smiles, laughter,
and awe that you are again visiting us.
Mayor Marcin, and officials, we welcome you with
warmth, sharing what we have, and learning from you
as you learn from us, how to shine light on each
of our grand moments, and how to avoid the stumbles.
So much of the world stands on unstable ground,
But here we are, solid as a plinth. We share
our hearts, knowing that what we will gain from
this time together is like the well-known story
a basket of fish that will keep growing the more our
two cities pass it around, a faith in our willingness
to join in mutual concern for what we both do:
build cities that bring joy and peace of mind
to our residents, and to the travelers that pass
through, but stay long enough to remember
that our two cities, having joined together in
this Association of Sister Cities, are trying
our best to bring solace to everyone,
as if we just finished a non-fiction story
that ends with hope.
Poem for Our Sister City, October, 2024, by City of Lacey’s Poet Laureate, Cynthia R. Pratt
Why We Will Miss You
A ghazal for Peter Brooks to celebrate his retirement on March 28, 2025
The world is mostly made up of precious water.
To quench our thirst we all require this water.
Each drop of rain falls and soaks into soggy soil,
our ground a sponge absorbing liquid clear water.
This transparent resource needs a pure clarity,
which falls on those we so rely on for water
to protect our streams, lakes and our filled storage tanks,
to use for our gardens, and fill baths with water.
Many times I have thought that if I were to lose
this precious, tasteless, nectar called water
could I survive? The answer ends with surely no.
My tea, coffee, and grapes for wine, all take water,
even the doe and fawn walking through SMU.
Eagle, owl, chickadee, flicker, and water
fowl, too. Peter, you kept Lacey’s elixir safe.
So to you we raise our glasses of cool water.
Cynthia Pratt, Poet Laureate of Lacey
What’s In A Name?
What’s In a Name
Sometimes nothing
but sometimes it is the
spindle, the pivot, the axle where
barbells hang off each end.
At least that’s how I picture
Lacey— two large areas at each end
With a narrow middle.
Once there was the intermediate moniker
For this middle section from a plan named
Woodland, yet without the woods,
as Council members, including me, pondered
names like perspective parents. Back then,
we sat in the Chamber room throwing out
titles for a district that many years ago was called
South Sound, but then Woodland District,
and now possibly something else. Staff suggest
new ones: Innovation or Industry, even
Technology District, until a constituent
tells someone in this committee
that the name Midtown hangs
onto all the other districts,
oozes homeyness as if
we are eating spun sugar, or
playing jacks. And, yes,
we nod, “Yes.” All of us remember
drive-ins before Freddy’s,
Richard’s Roundhouse diner before
Chase Bank. Some of us want to turn
back 40 years to a time when we could
still twist and shout, so Midtown
waits like a pom pom tied on our wrists.
This isn’t to say that there resides
other memories: a lot to do with
energy, those clever teenagers with their
robots, or later Christmas lights glowing,
fairs, festivals, togetherness with families,
music bubbling over the noon hour,
sometimes more energetic than Tina
Turner, you know that timbre that pulls
you off those hard metal chairs to
clap and sway?
Who We Are
Who We Are
Lacey honors and respects our communal diversity.
Even though the nation is challenging so many every day,
We support our neighbors in their time of adversity.
Our officers stand ready to provide everyone in this city safety.
Newcomers from so many other places, you are welcome to stay;
Lacey honors and respects our communal diversity.
Latinx Roofers, gardeners, clerks, and nurses help us cheerfully,
But in other cities we hear about families sent away.
We support our neighbors in their time of adversity.
A mix of cultures helps Lacey expand in innovation and efficiency,
that is why I hope we will always convey
Lacey honors and respects our communal diversity.
Our ethnic events celebrate unique foods and artistry;
these celebrations and other festivals are but one way we say
we support our neighbors in their time of adversity.
This community with its many lakes has grown remarkably
still our city stands for more than just a profitable payday.
Lacey honors and respects our communal diversity.
We support our neighbors in their time of adversity.
