Paul E Nelson presenting at Cascadia Poetry Festival 8, photo by Leszek Chudzinski
“Paul formally received the Mahayana precepts of Zen Buddhism in 2023, becoming a lay practitioner within the tradition, but I believe he had long lived in accord with them. His poetry, in its sensitivity, its humility, and its deep listening, embodies practice-realization — the understanding that practice and awakening are not separate. His writing was his zazen. This collection, FLEXIBLE MIND, is more than a book. It is a continuation of that practice. A testament to a man who lives by attention, who bows to language but does not cling to it, who seeks what lays beyond words by walking straight into them.”– Kosho Itagaki, Soto Zen Priest
407. to Marge Merrill, Tonawanda, NY – Skin Music
406. to Patty Kinney, Olympia, WA – Cerberus/Crepuscular
405. to Catherine Rustman, East Meadow, NY – Construction
404. to Avis Adams, Auburn, WA – Plum Crack
403. to Carole Sauter, Kent, WA – Teeth of an Obsolete Constellation
402. to Lew Humiston, Auburn, WA – Star Spark (The Origin of Ra?)
...
401 to Raul Sanchez – Tackling Crackers
400. to Vanessa Herman, Victoria, BC – Born Again Delta
399. to Kitty Jospé, Pittsford, NY – Dark Horse
(Last quote from Jose Lezama...
398. to Karen Lee Lewis, East Amherst, NY – Dream Seeds
End of the World Anthology
I'm delighted to have work in a new anthology entitled The End of the World Project. It was compiled by Richard Lopez, John Bloomberg-Rissman and T.C. Marshall and is so huge that it takes two books...
Interview Workshop at Open Books
Interviewing as Inspiration, Research, and Documentation with Paul Nelson March 10 @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm, Open Books, 2414 N. 45th, Seattle. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of SPLAB (Seattle...
2.20.2019 Peter Levitt Interview
What joy in the good fortune of getting to interview Peter Levitt at his Salt Spring Island (BC) home. To see Cusheon Lake frozen so solidly that Peter reports there were people playing hockey on...
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.