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.
Hold The House Sparrow (translation)
The haibun I wrote for Maleea Acker (84. Hold The House Sparrow) has been translated into Chinese. I got this yesterday from Denis Mair: Hello Paul, Zhang Yuan, who is studying for a PhD in...
David Abel Tether, Float, Spare Room, 13 Hats
For years I was on the email list of Portland poet David Abel. The range of events promoted on that list went from experimental poetry readings to workshops, rare book exhibits to raga singing...
Chang’an Poetry Festival Hall of Fame
My 2011 trip to China continues to pay dividends. I'll explain in a moment. I was invited to China for the 2011 Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival and traveled there with my wife Meredith...
Nate Mackey, Amerarcana
When I proposed to Nate Mackey that we do an interview on Nod House, which was and still is his latest book of poems, he asked me if I had a venue in mind for its publication. No, I said, but he did...
84. Hold The House Sparrow (For Maleea Acker)
During my recent stay in Victoria, I was the guest of Maleea Acker for a night. She was one of the Canadian poets who came down to read at our first Cascadia Poetry Festival and has recently...
Force Field: 77 Women BC Poets
Soon after I made plans to go to Victoria, BC, for the launch of the Poems from Planet Earth anthology (see this post), I found out the launch of another anthology was happening the next day in...
Poems from Planet Earth
As mentioned in my last post (Walking Victoria) in addition to some lovely photo opportunities and the best matcha ever, I attended the launch for a new anthology of poems made up of past readers at...
Walking Victoria
I think it was attending the Victoria School of Writing (RIP) Summer School session for a week in July 2005 that made me aware of the Planet Earth Poetry series in Victoria, BC. That was the week I...
Haibun de la Serna
Finishing the 83rd poem in a series of 99 haibun on Monday morning, Meredith had overheard me recording the poem and informed me I was "almost finished" with the series I have been working on for...
Subud House/Spring Street Center/Open House
I rarely write about my spiritual community, Subud, because one of Subud's cultural mores is to NOT proselytize and in practice that becomes NEVER TALK ABOUT IT, which would explain why the...
August POetry POstcard Fest 2020 (Official Call) #APPF14
The August Poetry Postcard Fest was initiated in 2007 by poets Paul Nelson and Lana Ayers. 2020 marks the 14th year of the fest and this is the official call. It is the biggest annual fundraiser for...
APPF13 Update
As of this writing there are 424 participants for the 13th August POetry POstcard Fest. Registration for 2019 ended July 18 and has BEGUN for APPF14. It will end July 4, 2020, earlier than in past...
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.