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
Enbridge Pipeline Poetry Resistance
This in from Christine LeClerc about an amazing piece of resistance to the tar-sands pipeline in poetry form. The poem is a great deal longer than the proposed pipeline and the pdf worth...
Cascadia Poetry Interview
Crystal Curry is writing a piece on the Cascadia Poetry Festival and had a few questions for me. I thought I'd get the whole thing online here so you can see some of the background of the fest and...
Hugo House looking for teachers
Email from Brian McGuigan of the Richard Hugo House: Dear Teachers: I’m writing to request proposals for summer quarter classes at Hugo House, running from July 9 through August 19. Click Here...
puget SOUND POETRY
puget SOUND POETRY Vermillion March 23rd 7-9pm Including: Cristin Miller Molly Mac Fedyk Ezra Mark Crag Hill Nico Vassilakis Joe Milutis Four Hoarse Men: Greg Bem, Jason Conger, Paul Nelson...
March American Sentences
It's March already, more evidence the drug of our time is velocity. So, I went back to Marches of the past for some American Sentences that you may enjoy. This time, I've added some commentary to...
Hugo House Write-O-Rama
Hugo House held its fun fundraiser, Write-O-Rama yesterday, adding a third time per year that they offer mini-workshops from teachers that usually teach, or have taught at RHH. I have participated...
More New American Sentences
Two months of the last year of the Mayan Calendar are toast like some human sacrifice down into a volcano and all I have to show for it is a few more measly 17 syllable poems. Here are some recent...
Seattle Cultural Survey
Save Charles Olson’s Neighborhood
Forwarding this from Peter Anastas, author of the Olson memoir, From Gloucester Out. He's asking us to: "Sign this petition and forward it to friends, poets, Olson and Gloucester lovers, who live...
Writing Haibun
Writing Haibun I first became aware of the haibun literary form through Anne Waldman's Marriage: A Sentence and through Sam Hamill's translation of Basho's Narrow Road to the Interior,perhaps the...
Annual Bradner Gardens Concert
On August 18, 2018, from 6:30 to 8:30pm, I will again participate in what is becoming like a ritual for me, reading poems with Jim O'Halloran's band at perhaps the best community garden in the city,...
Elegy for Tahlequah’s Calf
A recent poem of mine was published in Cascadia Magazine. It is dedicated to the "Father of Cascadia" who suggested someone write a poem about this tragic incident. Thank you David McCloskey and...
Notes on A Sense of the Whole (Reading Mark Gonnerman Reading Gary Snyder)
Mark Gonnerman was a participant in SPLAB's Becoming Cascadian retreat last spring. In 1997 he organized a yearlong research workshop on Gary Snyder's long poem Mountains and Rivers Without End....
The interview I conducted with Sam O’Hana, a Ph.D. student at CUNY, is immensely critical and immensely validating for the work we do at the Cascadia Poetics Lab. At its core, the discussion is about whether writing is for people of means, or if it can be people who have skill and something to say. It means the literary gatekeepers have failed us and have a role in perpetuating neoliberalism in North America which has paved the way for authoritarianism. The interview is available as a podcast here and as a YouTube video here. Below, I have pasted in the transcript and here is my introduction to Sam O’Hana and his topic.