Poet of the natural world Poet of the natural world Poet of the natural world

Poet and teacher Martha Silano, ’93, died May 5, 2025, at the age of 63. A nationally-renowned, award-winning author of six full-length poetry collections, Silano was celebrated as a gifted and passionate creative writing teacher who was equally at ease sharing poetry with kindergartners as with doctoral students.

Silano grew up in central New Jersey and graduated from Metuchen High School in 1979. She received a bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College and Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Washington, where she met fellow writer Langdon Cook, ’94, who later became her husband.

“Martha and I first bonded over birds,” says Cook. “As relatively new residents of the Pacific Northwest, we learned the region by traveling from coastal rainforests to high desert canyons in search of new species. On an Olympic Peninsula backpacking trip Martha introduced me to my first edible wild mushroom, Laetiporus, also known as chicken-of-the-woods. Fungi would go on to be rich subject matter for both of us as writers.”

As artists, Silano and Cook were deeply connected, each playing a vital role in the other’s creative life. When Silano received the PEN Northwest Margery Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency, she and Cook used her stipend to live for a time in a cabin on Oregon’s Rogue River.

Silano delighted in the natural world. She filled her poems with birds, flowers, grasshoppers, rivers and sedimentary rock as well as her signature touches of quirk.

Her father, Alfred A. Silano, a professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas, inspired her to become a teacher. She launched her teaching career at the Everett Naval Base and later held positions at Seattle Central Community College and Edmonds Community College before joining Bellevue College in 2005. In addition to teaching, Silano developed and co-wrote “The Daily Poet: Day-by-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice,” a book of poetic prompts created with Kelli Russell Agodon.

Silano’s book of poems, “Terminal Surreal”—a chronicle of her struggle with ALS—is scheduled for publication in September 2025 by Acre Books. “Last Train to Paradise: New and Selected Poems” is forthcoming in October 2025 from Saturnalia Books.