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.
May 13 Nanaimo Workshop
I have been fortunate to be able to travel to much of Cascadia. Sometimes I get to share the fruit of my research on Organic Poetry. David Fraser of Wordstorm has invited me back to Diana Krall's...
Xi Chuan Notes on the Mosquito
After making a presentation in Xining, China in August, 2011, at the 3rd Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival, a Chinese poet came up to me, told he he enjoyed my presentation and asked if I...
Cascadia Poetry Festival Ad Board Meeting
To the Members of the Cascadia Advisory Board, We are scheduling a meeting on Sunday, March 31, 2013, at 4P at Spring Street Center, 1101 15th in Seattle. We'll give folks an update on developments...
The Meat Reason of the Last Beat
The Meat Reason of the Last Beat: McClure’s Latihan (Download as pdf) A man writhing on the floor with his eyes closed, perhaps groaning and twisting in sunlight that pours through a window,...
How to Not Get Lost Backpacking
The vision quests in our culture are usually unintentional. We have, by and large, rejected the ancient needs for rituals to mark rites of passage, but somewhere in the psyche, a human demands it to...
The State of Seattle Poetry (Online Panel)
Greg Bem and Amber Nelson have asked me to convene the first of many online panels on poetry they plan to produce starting March 24, 2013: Confirmed panelists: Daemond Arrindell. Poet, performer,...
1st Crop of 2013 American Sentences
One function of my practice of writing a daily American Sentence is as a journal. I will go back to these not for the literary merit, but to remind myself of life's little trials and twists. Having...
Pirates of Cascadia
There is something about the San Juan Islands that lets a Midwest boy understand he is in Cascadia. When the view out your hostel window is this: you know you're not in corn country. And of course...
Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo
I got up early today and had some time to think (& write a poem) after doing my morning routine of journaling &c. (Someone in the household had coffee too late the night before and was up...
Cascadia Poetry Fest in Anacortes
What great coverage in the Anacortes Arts Briefings newsletter on our May 9-12 festival: Gold Passes admit the holder to all events except Steve Kuusisto's master workshop “Have Dog, Will Travel: A...
National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month and Carolyne Wright has organized a fine group of local poets to celebrate on April 23rd from 6-8pm at legendary University Books in Seattle: Join us for an epic...
One Year After Sam Hamill’s Death
Sam Hamill left this earthly plane on April 14, 2018, and plans are underway to recognize that anniversary in a private and low-key ceremony, along with sushi and saké after, just as Sam would have...
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.