It’s been said that a poet is someone who is astonished by everything – and Washington poet Nancy Pagh has embodied that sentiment since a very young age.

Pagh is coming to the Lopez Library on Saturday, Sept. 20 for a “Meet the Artist” event and a short writing workshop, starting at 5 p.m. She will be reading some of her own work and is “eager to discuss audience questions about creativity, poetry, publishing, and performing literature,” said library director Lou Pray.

The reading and workshop are free of charge; Pagh’s visit is being funded by the Washington State Arts Commission and the Artist Trust. To sign up for the workshop, call the library at 468-2265.

Pagh was born and raised in Anacortes, Wash., and she “burst” on to the literary scene at age 12 with the publication of her poem “Is a Clam Clammy, or is it Just Wet?” in a local boating magazine.

After college, she worked in the Publications Unit of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle before traveling to New Hampshire for graduate school. She earned M.A. degrees in literature and creative writing, followed by a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia.

Her first book, “At Home Afloat” (2001), is a study of the language women use at sea. Her first collection of poems, “No Sweeter Fat,” won the Autumn House Press book award in 2006, and her chapbook “After” won the 2008 Floating Bridge Press award. Pagh’s writing appears in “Prairie Schooner,” “Rattle,” “Poetry Northwest,” “Crab Creek Review,” “The Bellingham Review,” and “Pontoon.” An engaging performer, she has been a featured poet at the Skagit River Poetry Festival and the Gist Street Masters Series in Pittsburgh, and she was the 2008 D. H. Lawrence Fellow at the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference.

Pagh has taught at universities in Washington State and New York, and has led many poetry workshops. She is currently a lecturer for Western Washington University and resides in Bellingham.