Paul E Nelson presenting at Cascadia Poetry Festival 8, photo by Leszek Chudzinski
Paul Nelson’s ongoing honing of the Day Song poetry event has produced some of the most lively and consequential verse of our time. How else write about the calamities and demands and mental/emotional/political consequences of the materialist apocalypse upon us, than an ongoing poesis of awareness and participation the anti-form the Day Song provides? Truly a praxis of proprioception and of Olson’s demand to “keep it moving…
– Sharon Thesen, Cascadian Poet/Scholar from B.C.
DaySong of Thoughtless Openness
I am still floating from my recent visit to British Columbia, which I took for a series of events centered around Cascadian Zen Volume I. Events at the Mountain Rain Zen Center in Vancouver, the...
Sam Hamill, Christopher Yohmei Blasdel Heart of Bamboo
I was delighted to see this note from Christopher Yohmei Blasdel: I'm thrilled to announce the streaming re-release of "Heart of Bamboo: Poetry and Music in the Zen Tradition," featuring the poetry...
Reading @ Butoh, Typewriter Poems in Bothell, Bradner Gardens
They're keeping me hopping this weekend and I'm delighted. Friday night at 7:30, I'll be reading poems at the home of Joan Laage and David Thornbrugh. It's an event called Homestage, featuring butoh...
TAKE A STAND: POETS AGAINST HATE
I hope you can join me for a reading curated by Phoebe Bosche of the Raven Chronicles from 2-4pm on Saturday, October 19, 2024 at the Microsoft Auditorium of the Seattle Central Library: Take a...
DaySong Miracle (Past 62)
DaySong Miracle (Past 62) by Paul E. Nelson Published April 2024Greg Bem, Carbonation Press: This is third of four “DaySongs” Seattle poet Paul E. Nelson has completed. The ritual was designed for...
Cascadian Prophets: Interviews 1999-2023
Cascadian Prophets: Interviews 1999-2023 By Paul E NelsonEdited by Sharon Thesen Cascadian Prophets: Interviews 1999-2023 is the second collection of transcribed interviews taken from the 30 year...
Bradner Gardens Concert, Aug 17
I'm delighted to read poems again with the backing of the Jim O'Halloran Quartet, Saturday, August 17, 2024, 7pm at Bradner Gardens. The gardens are at 1730 Bradner Place South in the Mount Baker...
Social Acceleration and the Postcard Antidote
I was fortunate to be invited to teach spontaneous poetry methods at Holden Village, which is a spiritual retreat in the North Cascades. It is a former mining town and is a 45 minute drive from the...
Another DaySong (1980)
Another DaySong (1980) By Paul E Nelson Alongside The Day Song of Casa del Colibiri, Another Day Song (1980) is a fantastic meditation throughout the day via insight and poetry. Nelson's works...
Jan 2, 2026 Interview with Cornelius Eady on Proof
On January 1, 2026, a 34-year-old, immigrant, Muslim, democratic socialist mayor was sworn in to run the largest city in the United States. When asked by the Nation magazine if this unlikely event...
New Edition of Entrance
As a contributor to En-trance Journal, I'm delighted to announce that an excerpt from my last interview with Sharon Thesen is part of the offering: https://www.entrancejournal.net/ Sharon has a...
Cascadian Prophets 2025 Spotify Wrapped Stats
I was quite happy with the news from Spotify when I watched their 2025 Wrapped summary of the podcast stats for Cascadian Prophets. I was in radio for 26 years and got into podcasting late, but here...
In Honor of David McCloskey “The Father of Cascadia”
David McCloskey passed away on July 3. In honor of his lifetime of work to create and spread a culture that was deeply connected to the Cascadian bioregion, Cascadian Prophets, which owes more than just its name to his work, we want to share this interview from October, 2013. Find it transcribed on our website.
To listen to the original audio of this interview, click here.
Check out more of what the Lab does here, and listen to more current and archival podcasts on Spotify or on our website.
In Honor of David McCloskey "The Father of Cascadia"
How does one make literary art about this time in history that avoids rhetoric and facile political positioning in this era of the spectacle? How does one avoid being consumed by the simultaneous collapse of so many systems — some being eviscerated by people in positions designed to protect such systems? Deborah Poe has some idea based on her submission to the upcoming anthology Winter in America (Still.
Deborah is the author of several books of poetry including keep, Elements, and Our Parenthetical Ontology, as well as a novella in verse, Hélène. Her visual works–video poems and handmade book objects–have been exhibited throughout the US. She lives on stolen Coast Salish land, specifically the ancestral homeland of the Duwamish, Suquamish, Stillaguamish, and Muckleshoot People.
Check out more of what the Lab does here, and listen to more current and archival podcasts on Spotify or on our website.
To get original poetry right in your mailbox this summer, check out the Poetry Postcard Fest.