Olympia’s new poet laureate Ashly McBunch is an Army veteran and drag performer

Ashly McBunch is not only Olympia’s new Poet Laureate, but also an Army veteran and a drag performer — a combination that, the poet says, is not as unlikely as it might appear.

“I know that people view people in the military in particular ways,” said McBunch, who moved to Olympia in 2017 while stationed at Joint Base Lewis McChord. “There are amazing artists and poets and writers in the military. There are other aspects to people in the military that maybe don’t get showcased as much.”

McBunch, who retired from the Army in 2018 after 17 ½ years, writes and reads poetry and performs throughout the Pacific Northwest as both drag queen Luna DeLyte and drag king Ra DeLyte.

The Olympian caught up with the poet, who’ll begin a two-year term July 1, to talk about the power of words, Army life and why writing poetry can be scarier than doing burlesque.

Q. Why do we need poetry?

A. It heals. The words that we use are important. Through words, we set the intentions that we put into the world. We start conversations and build together.

Q. When did you fall in love with poetry?

A. The first time I wrote a poem, I was 10. It was about Martin Luther King. It was something for school.

Poetry has stayed with me. I like art in all different kinds of forms, but poetry is something I was able to take with me no matter where I was in the world. I joined the military when I was 18, and it was something that I could take with me.

Q. Where in the world have you been?

A. I’m originally from Missouri. In the military, I was deployed to Iraq twice and also worked in California, Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, Thailand and Alaska.

Q. What do you hope to achieve as poet laureate?

A. I really want people to engage with poetry. I want to raise the awareness of people in the community who’ve maybe never thought about poetry and bring them into it.

I believe art is a tree with many creative branches that connect us all through the same nurturing soil. I want to showcase how poetry feeds into all of these different arts and how they all touch each other.

I want to work with different local artists working in different art forms and make video segments of us talking about their art and talking about poetry and collaborating. Those will be posted online, and I’ll invite people to try it themselves and submit what they created.

I also want to work with children and offer workshops about writing poetry.

Q. How does doing burlesque and drag compare to writing poetry. Do they fulfill you in different ways?

A. I find a lot of freedom in both, but poetry is more vulnerable. If someone doesn’t get my point when I’m doing drag or when I’m doing burlesque, that’s cool. But if someone doesn’t get my words, it hits me more. It’s still OK, though.

Performing in drag lets me play with an exaggerated aspect of myself that’s fun to be in and fun to engage with.

Poetry is more raw.

This story was originally published May 28, 2021 at 5:00 AM.