Michael Dylan Welch is passionate about poetry, especially Japanese forms. He has served two terms as poet laureate of Redmond, Washington, where he curates SoulFood Poetry Night and is president of the Redmond Association of Spokenword. He also runs National Haiku Writing Month every February, and his personal website, devoted mostly to poetry.

For VALA, Michael looks forward to facilitating poetry writing workshops, including ekphrastic writing in response to VALA art installations, and organizing seasonal poetry readings.