Find the announcement here. I think Kathleen Flenniken is a good poet. She's more of a storyteller than a lot of modern poets—see this poem, and this poem, too. I like her best when she's not writing about the natural world—her most boring language comes when she writes about flowers—but she's observant and interesting when she writes about people. Her most recent book is Plume, which is all about Hanford Nuclear Reservation, where she worked. (Find a book trailer here.) I'm sure the inevitable Republican whining about why we even have a state poet laureate is soon to follow. I bet she'll put up a pretty good fight when that happens.