: An Olympia poet and scientist, Bill Yake was born and raised east of the mountains – moving west in 1977. He worked with the Washington State Department of Ecology as an environmental scientist tracking down toxic contaminants in fish, rivers, groundwater, sediments, and soils. Since retirement he has traveled — to Papua New Guinea, China, Sicily, Australia, France’s illustrated caves, Peru and — most recently — Mongolia.
Bill’s full-length collections include This Old Riddle: Cormorants and Rain and Unfurl, Kite, and Veer (both from Radiolarian Press, Astoria). These and several of his scientific publications are included in holdings at the Library of Congress.
His poems appear widely in anthologies and publications serving the environmental and literary communities. These include Orion, Open Spaces, Rattle, Cascadia Review, and NPR’s Krulwich’s Wonders.