
Dancing to the Ticking of the Doomsday Clock
Rena Priest(Author)
Moonpath Press
Published on 1. June 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
94 pages
978-1-970256-16-1 (ISBN)
Description
Snap your fingers, move your hips, step high, then low, then turn around. Keep the rhythm. It all matters. We are all keeping time and so are the trees, the waters, the earth, just a different kind of time than the Doomsday Clock. Rena Priest's new collection of poetry provides wisdom, humor, and the right words to accompany us in this spiral of becoming through this age of
hypercontradictions. Her compassion is contagious. You will need this book to help make it through to the next dance.
- Joy Harjo, 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States
Where does the soul reside? Where does love begin? What has grown out of what has gone away? Are we miracles? These are just a few inquiries presented in Rena Priest's introspective and illuminative collection Dancing to the Ticking of the Doomsday Clock. These poems are brimming with both celebration and lament, wit and wisdom, the everyday and the profound, offering Lummi world views, songs, dances, and stories as prayer maps connecting us to this world and places beyond.
- Tiffany Midge, author of Dreamcatcher in the Wry and Horns
More details
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 5 mm
Weight
150 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-970256-16-1 (9781970256161)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Rena Priest is a citizen of the Lhaq'temish [Lummi] Nation. In a historic appointment, Priest was named Washington state's sixth poet laureate (2021-2023), becoming the first Indigenous person to hold the position. In this role, she championed poetry that celebrated the ecological gifts of her ancestral homelands, the bioregion. She is an Academy of American Poets Fellow, an Indigenous Nations Poets Fellow, a Maxine Cushing Gray Distinguished Writer, and winner of a Washington State Book Award for poetry. Her new essay collection, Positively Uncivilized, was published (October 2025) as the inaugural winner of the Keepers of the Fire Award from Raven Chronicles Press. She splits time between Bellingham, Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia.