91探花

“There’s definitely a connection between the teaching training that I learned at 91探花 and being poet laureate,” says Sheffield, who graduated in 1994. “It’s about serving people, place and indeed all beings in our state, bringing us closer with the notion of interconnectedness.”

Though a celebrated poet now, his road to the poet laureateship was anything but straightforward. As a self-described shy kid growing up in Portland, Ore., and Gig Harbor, Wash., Sheffield read voraciously to help him cope with the social pressures of middle school.

In high school, he dreamt of owning a bookstore one day “so I could sit there and sell books and read them all day,” he says.

It was an influential English teacher who showed him that writing books, specifically poetry, might be even more fulfilling than selling them. While Sheffield had imagined and written short stories since childhood, it wasn’t until the poetry class in high school that he found his true calling.

“As I came to know poetry, I felt that it was even more real, even more meaningful than prose. I think I was responding to the spiritual nature of poetry, even back then,” he says. “I was amazed by poems like ‘Those Winter Sundays’ by Robert Hayden, which could reach so deeply, so quickly in 14 lines.”

After college and a few years bouncing around marketing, retail and construction jobs, Sheffield felt a calling to become a teacher. And 91探花’s MIT program was the natural next step to exploring this new interest.

“I had a friend who went through the MIT program and told me about it,” he recalls. “When I heard about the intensive nature—one year—I just loved that. I remember thinking, ‘That’s my ticket!’”

His experience at 91探花, though short in time, was unforgettable. “The faculty were well-informed and inviting,” he says. “Everything I learned in those classes in 1994 is still relevant today, especially what we talked about in terms of equity and inclusiveness.”

While at 91探花 he even co-wrote a book with MIT Associate Professor Mark Roddy, one of the first “how-to” educator guides for teaching using the internet, something he remembers fondly but acknowledges, with a laugh, that it might be slightly out of date today.

After a service-learning internship at Rainier Beach High School and a Master’s of Fine Arts in poetry writing, Sheffield landed a faculty position at Wenatchee Valley College in 1999, where he teaches English literature and creative writing.

While teaching at Wenatchee, Sheffield continued to write and publish prize-winning poetry. His book, Through the Second Skin, was runner-up for the Emily Dickinson First Book Award in 2012 and his 2021 collection, Not for Luck, was selected by the influential poet Mark Doty for the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize.

This body of work earned him the attention of arts leaders throughout the state. After being encouraged by friends to apply for poet laureate, he was selected and appointed by Gov. Bob Ferguson as the 8th Poet Laureate of Washington earlier this year, a role he will serve in through 2027.

A position made possible by support from Humanities Washington and the Washington State Arts Commission (ArtsWA), Sheffield describes the poet laureate as “an ambassador for the appreciation of poetry in our state’s culture.”

As poet laureate Sheffield travels around the state giving public readings, talks and workshops at libraries, schools and community centers, raising awareness and advocating for the arts in civic and cultural life.

He’s happy to do it, he says, given how important poetry is in his own life and the people he encounters in his travels.

“Poetry constantly wakes me to the marvel of being alive and in relationship to all around me,” he says. “In my experience, poetry is the one place where we consistently address the things that matter most in this life.” 

Derek with his daughters (l-r) Zoey Sheffield and Kelsea Sheffield.

One of Derek’s poems from his book, Not for Luck:
FIRST GRADE

Sunday afternoon and she looks up 
from her drawing, wants to know 
if I know the game where you put 
your head down and thumb up 

until someone picks you.  
“Yes,” I say, across the room and half- 
listening. “Well, I always pick my friends  
but they never pick me.” I pause 

in the middle of a sentence.  
“Who are your friends?” 
“Everyone!” she says, as if I had asked  
one plus one or the color of the sky. 
Sunlight draws a skewed rectangle 
across the floor. “I see,” I say 
and let my notebook close, seeing  
children in rows, heads on desks, 

her big ears poking through sandy hair,  
listening for a step or a breath. “Yes,  
I remember that game.” And I stand  
and walk over to find the outline of her hand 

plunging through a white sky.