At 38 years old, Mery Smith says she has just begun to live her life.
It took her about the same amount of time to consider herself a poet. Now, she holds the title of Spokane's poet laureate, a cultural ambassador for both the written and spoken word.
Smith is the fifth poet to hold the title since Spokane Arts created the program in 2013, even though she never formally studied writing like her predecessors.
Growing up in Kettle Falls, Smith spent most of her formative years in the small town on the Colville River making books out of office paper and reading Frog and Toad. At 11 years old she moved to East Wenatchee, where she attended middle school, high school and Wenatchee Valley College. Smith then transferred to North Idaho College for her associate degree but essentially flunked out due to poor performance caused by alcoholism.
Throughout the whole ordeal, words brought her solace — the nostalgia of Frog and Toad, the letters that her older brother would write and read to her. She lived in a tent in her friend's garage in Coeur d'Alene and imagined fulfilling her dream of being an artist. She fell in love, got sober, had a baby, and then three more.
After attending poetry workshops held by former Spokane Poet Laureate Mark Anderson, who served from 2017 to 2019, Smith was finally able to start writing again.
"Six years ago I was wiping butts and cutting the crust off of sandwiches," Smith says. "Being poet laureate was not on my radar. I took Mark's classes, and for the entire time I was just head down because I couldn't get over the fact that I felt so out of my league at that point because everyone had MFAs."
Smith toyed around with the idea of going back to school but as a mom of four children, one who is disabled, it was out of the question. People in her life assured her that an MFA does not a poet make.
"So I started taking workshops," she says. "Anytime I could get my hands on a workshop or a writing retreat, I just signed up and went. Then, one day, I looked at the list of qualifications [for poet laureate], and I qualified. So I threw my name in the hat. It was totally unreasonable. My life was absolutely falling apart."
It was July 2023. Smith's older brother died the year before from a fentanyl overdose, she had just filed for divorce, and the deadline for the poet laureate application was August.
"I thought I should let someone else do it," she says. "Somebody who isn't a single mom, who doesn't have four kids, and has a master's degree."
But there was something, or rather someone, Smith wasn't considering.
"I asked my spiritual mentor, and she told me that it wasn't for me to decide," she says. "She said that my only job was to consider myself. Before they even consider me, I need to consider me."
The process of compiling her application for poet laureate was cathartic and healing for Smith as she'd never seen all of her work and accomplishments stacked together. She describes the process and her mindset with a quote from the 2004 movie Spanglish: "While it would thrill me, it will not define me."
"Whether or not I got picked for poet laureate I would [still] be putting on poetry workshops," she says. "Whether or not I got picked, I would be down at the youth shelter. I would put out chapbooks, and I would be at all of the readings around town. And I will cry and laugh and be all the things I can possibly be. My life will not change. I am the poet laureate not because you said so, but because that's who I am and that's who I want to be."
Skyler Oberst, executive director of Spokane Arts, says no one exemplifies the role of poet laureate and the city of Spokane quite like Smith.
"She invites listeners to be authentic and genuine with her," Oberst says. "In a world that thinks so much about the left or the right, the red or the blue, the right or the wrong, Mery thinks about things beyond that. Things beyond your day-to-day thoughts. We need more Merys in the world."
When she moved to Spokane in 2011, Smith found a community in Peaceful Valley. People who listened to her, healed her; neighbors who cared; writers who encouraged her. Although she's since moved out of the charming neighborhood tucked along the banks of the Spokane River, she often finds herself there for a weekly book club or just to reminisce.
"I've lived in San Francisco, and I've lived in Portland, but I always come back to Spokane," Smith says. "There's something about Spokane that makes it different. I've never felt like I belonged somewhere more."
Because of her experience with alcoholism and recovery, Smith's biggest goal as poet laureate is to help others heal the same way she did: through the power of words and community.
"I want to bring poetry to places and spaces that we wouldn't normally consider poetic," she says. "Places where people are getting treatment for drugs and alcohol. As somebody who's sober and has gone through that, you need to repair your life, put things back together, become trustworthy, employable and dependable. But you can also use imagination and creativity as healing modalities. And not just like a cherry on top, but as an essential piece of recovery."
Last April, Smith attended Eastern Washington University's Get Lit! Festival's headlining event featuring then U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón at the Central Library.
"There were at least a dozen people sitting right outside who were unhoused," she says. "You're telling me out of these dozen people that there's not a playwright out here? There's not a painter or a choreographer? Or a baker? I don't buy it."
Just like she finally saw herself as a poet, Smith wants others to see themselves as whatever they are.
"I want them to know it and see it and believe it," she says. "You just need to bear witness. All you have to do is not look away."
In two years, Smith's tenure as Spokane's poet laureate will come to an end, but her mission to help others through words certainly won't.
"Every time my heart was broken, words put it back together," she says. "Every time my life falls apart, I find words again, and they put it into context. Something more real and more true comes out of that."
NOW, WINGED
Butterflies on que
that's how you come to me now,
with the music up
full blast your seal-like laugh.
Remember you on one knee
reciting poetry to the girl
with citrine eyes.
Now, I run towards you.
Reaching out to grasp at the ghost
an invisible disease.
How much for these teeth?
How much for these teeth?
I cannot afford them now.
Now, winged your dentin exalted.
I am reaching out to save what
is left of your reputation what became
of you was not the way I remember
you.
At night reaching down from your
bunk bed to pop the small pockets of air
from between my toes just because.
A gesture all our own.
WHAT I HEARD THIS WEEK AS I TRAVELED FROM MRS. TO MS.
..you're glassy eyed crazy like a wayward sailor, but in a good way
..someone plucks the keys at the Goodwill piano to Jason Mraz sounds like they're celebrating
..There's just something about poetry in this town
..How old are you?
I'm 38
...wow let's not talk about this anymore
...If you want a career in education you better be careful what you say.
...I just want to feel something.
...Oh, that's why you brought me here.
...every text sent reads: hey, you got a minute?
