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PAUL E NELSON

George Bowering @ 80

The first Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada turns 80 today. I first met George Bowering at the (sadly now defunct) Victoria School of Writing Summer School in 2005. I had started my graduate work in what would become Organic Poetry and I had heard a little bit...

Audio from King’s Books 3.13.15

I am grateful to Connie Walle for inviting me to be a featured reader at the Distinguished Writer’s Series in Tacoma. I did it last Friday, March 13, 2015 and was delighted to see many long-time friends in the house. I had been scheduled for February 2007, but...

After The Japanese 9-12

When one writes poetry from the practice of outside, you can go back and look at poems 10 months old and marvel at the consciousness there because in a way, it’s not you. As drummer Hamid Drake told me after a legendary concert with William Parker and the late...

Animating Cascadia Western Lit Conference Notes

I am set to leave for Victoria on the Clipper and make a presentation Thursday morning at the Western Literature Association’s annual conference on a panel with Andy Meyer and Nadine Maestas. They added to our panel a woman doing a paper on Tess Gallagher. What...

Notes On Gone South

I was given a charge by Michael McClure when I started my graduate work as an independent study student in 2004. He said to not limit my search to the U.S. Taking his advice turned me on to poets like Jose Kozer, the TISH poets of Vancouver, BC and to organizing...