Poet and teacher Alice Derry, a resident of Port Angeles, will be the featured poet in Orcas Island’s celebration of National Poetry Month.

She will read her poetry on Friday, April 24 at 7 p.m. in the Orcas Library, and will teach a workshop the following day.

Derry is an accomplished reader of her work and has read widely. She has been a featured poet and teacher at the Skagit River Poetry Festivals. The Orcas Island Library and Friends of the Library are sponsoring this reading for the community.

Derry’s first manuscript, Stages of Twilight, was chosen by Raymond Carver as the l986 King County (Seattle) Arts Publication Award winner.

Carver said of the poems in a Seattle Times interview: “I felt she was writing about real things, things that counted. Her poems seemed honest in their conception and execution – they made a claim on my interest right away. I would even say they made a claim on my heart.”

Derry holds an M.F.A. from Goddard College in Vermont, as well as an M.A. in English from The American University in Washington, D.C. She has had poems nominated for the Pushcart Prize six times. Her poems have appeared in a number of publications and anthologies.

Derry was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Washington State Arts Commission, as well as the Washington Community and Technical College Humanities Association Exemplary Status Award. In February of 2005, Derry was named Poet-in-Residence at the biennial conference of the National Association for Humanities Education. Derry teaches English and German at Peninsula College in Port Angeles, Washington.