The White River Valley Museum recently hosted The Anchor Tenant Poets, featuring a reading by four of the Seattle-areas brightest poetic stars. The room was full of aspiring poets and a smattering of listeners.

The event was organized by Martha Silano who read from her book, “What the Truth Taste Like, Blue Positive.” Another one of her books, “The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception,” was chosen by Campbell McGrath as the winner of the 2010 Saturnalia Book Prize. Silano teaches at Bellevue College.

Allen Braden has received fellowships from the National Endowments for the Arts and Artist Trust. He has won the Emerging Writers Prize, The Grolier Poetry Prize and The Dana Award in Poetry. He makes his home in Lakewood. Braden read from his book, “A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood.”

Pleasure Boat Studio published Kevin Miller’s third poetry collection, “Home & Away: The Old Town Poems,” from which he read. He has received grants from Artist Trust and The Tacoma Arts Foundation. Miller has has been teaching in the public schools for 39 years. He lives in Tacoma.

Lana Hechtman Ayers is a member of the Auburn Striped Water Poets. She is poetry editor of Crab Creek Review and runs Concrete Wolf Chapbook Press. She read from her latest work, “A New Red: A Fairy Tale for Grown-ups.” Ayersis originally from New York and now lives in Kingston where she works as a manuscript consultant.

The reading is supported in part through an award from 4Culture’s Individual Artist Projects program.