Mateo Quispe is the subject of a wonderful profile in the Cascadia Journal. Andy Engelson runs that publication and has his finger on the pulse of progressive news from around the bioregion. We’re hoping Mateo can be part of the 10th Cascadia Poetry Fesitval, October 9-11, 2026, at the Rainier Beach Community Club and other venues. Mateo read work as part of the recent Cascadia Day Poetry Explosion, the effect of which was heard as far as New York. Andrew writes:
Mateo Quispe, who’s the poet laureate of Auburn – a suburban city south of Seattle – wishes they’d had more access to Indigenous poetry growing up. Quispe spent most of their life in Auburn, and is Red River Métis and Little Shell Chippewa (unenrolled) as well as Two-Spirit Peruvian-American with Quechua heritage.
Now, at 23 they are the youngest poet laureate of Auburn (and one of the youngest poets to ever serve as a laureate in North America), and previously served as the Seattle Youth Poet Laureate. They decided to use their current position to secure grants to create little libraries of Indigenous poetry and place them in community spaces across Auburn and Muckleshoot land. READ MORE
There is no publication with more current information about the bioregion than the Cascadia Journal. & the success of the May 18 reading at Vermillion is quite possibly going to lead to more such occasions at that venue which is a true friend to artists in Seattle when most of the town is seems to not care much about the bastard art of poetry. Thank you Vermillion. Thank you Andy and Mateo.
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