Paul E. Nelson

Master of Arts

Specialization: Organic Poetry

May 2007

SUMMARY OF PROGRAM WORK

Coursework  

Consciousness and the Living Universe with Rudy Ryser, Ph.D. Center for World Indigenous Studies, Olympia, Washington. 10 hours – June, 2004.

Semester One: August – December ’04. Six Credits. Essays: What is Open Form; Poet of Parturition: Walt Whitman; What is Consciousness and The Tibetan View of Sound.

Semester Two: January – May, 2005. Six credits. Essays: Kum Nye, Writing Out of Hell: The Practice of William Carlos Williams, The Oosumich of Open Form and Cuba Pictorial Essay. (Cultural Connections.)

Semester Three: September – December ’05. Six Credits. Essays: Dualism and Olson’s Antidote; The Sound of the Field; American Sentences: Catching the Shadow of the Moment; Changing a Culture: A Look at Cultural Modernism and Free Market Verse; and Third Semester Bibliography.

Semester Four: January ’06 – May ’06. Six Credits. Essays: Organic Poetry and Evolving The Organic.

Semester Five: September – December ’06. Six Credits. Essays: Inside Dolphin Skull and Crafting The Organic: George Bowering’s Kerrisdale Elegies. Also, interviews conducted with Robib Blaser and documented in Tracking The Fire in Open Form: An Interview with Robin Blaser and Sam Hamill, documented in Why Poetry Matters.

Semester Six: December ’06 – May ’07. Six Credits. Essay: Introduction to Organic Poetry. Also, created a website with all graduate papers at http://www.OrganicPoetry.org.

Seminars and Trainings

Tibetan Dur Bon workshops with Christopher Hansard. Tofino, B.C. 60 hours – July, 2004.

Protected Knowing Symposium with Richard Atleo, Ph.D., Olympia, Washington, 6 hours –March, 2005.

Victoria School of Writing Summer Session with George Bowering, Victoria, BC,

25 hours – July, 2005

Tibetan Dur Bon workshops with Christopher Hansard, Tofino, B.C., 60 hours – June, 2005.

Kum Nye workshop with Stephanie Wright, D.C., Tofino, B.C., 30 hours – September, 2006.

Special Projects

Writing Residency at Centrum, Port Townsend, Washington, 14 days, October – November, 2004.

Travel to Cuba for Cultural Connections, February – March, 2005.

Open Form/Organic Poetry workshops facilitated in Port Townsend, Washington, November, 2004; Poets-in-the-Park (along with panel moderation and participation on another panel) April, 2005; Haiku North America Conference, September, 2005; Highline Community College, Des Moines, Washington, October, 2005; Richard Hugo House, Seattle, Washington, November, 2006; Richard Hugo House at Park Place Books, Kirkland, Washington, six weeks, January and Fenruary, 2007 and another six week workshop series at the Richard Hugo House, Seattle, Washington, April and May, 2007.

Featured Readings at Walla Walla Poetry Party, Walla Walla, Washington, April, 2005; Burning Word Festival, Greenbank, Washington, April, 2005; & Now Literary Arts Conference, Lake Forest, Illinois, April 2006; Skagit River Poetry Festival, May, 2006.

Independent Readings

Books, articles, and other references as listed in Thesis Annotated Bibliography

Final Project: Thesis

Organic Poetry: A twenty-five page introductory essay, posted on a new website, with all relevant graduate writings at http://www.OrganicPoetry.org. This thesis discusses how an open form (organic) poetry discipline aids the process of individuation, the centers of Organic Poetry, how this poetics transcends materialistic consciousness, its resonances with scientific Field Theory, and its cosmology, sourced in Alfred North Whitehead and Hua Yen Buddhism.