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PAUL E NELSON

An Army of Lovers (Spahr, Buuck)

I was chatting with Vancouver poet George Stanley about what he considered innovative in contemporary poetry. Without hesitation he said the book An Army of Lovers by Juliana Spahr and David Buuck was an example. Once home I ordered the book and saw that it was not...

Cascadia and Feminism

The subject of Feminism has been coming up in recent weeks. My interview with Daphne Marlatt touched on it, as she has organized Feminist conferences thirty years ago and identifies as a Feminist. She is one of the headliners for the upcoming Cascadia Poetry Festival....

Early 2014 American Sentences

The first harvest of the new year, my fourteenth with a daily practice of writing one 17 syllable poem. More on American Sentences elsewhere on this site, but for now, a few from 2014: 1.3.14 – A sort of Sudhana seeks the genius loci of Cascadia. 1.5.14 –...

Limits of the Heroic

An interesting confluence of events in my life the last couple of weeks which involve a bit of poetics, a bit from one of my recent interviews, Facebook discussions and Feminism. And involves Charles Olson. A recent Facebook thread was started by Sam Hamill, was liked...

Getting to Know Cascadian Poets & Poetics

It was after I finished my M.A. from Lesley University, a course of study I organized with the help of a few select advisors that one of my most close readers, Chuck Pirtle, suggested what I was heading towards in my writing was in helping define a West Coast poetics....