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
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...
Poetry Postcard Exercise
Poetry Postcard Exercise Ted Berrigan, Robin Blaser and Jack Spicer are among the more notable poets to engage in such a project. Berrigan’s book of them (A Certain Slant on Sunlight) was completed...
Washington State Poetry Questionnaire
The new state Poet Laureate, Kathleen Flenniken asked me to help get the word out about her focus as the 2nd Poet Laureate of the state of Washington, the state poetry questionnaire. I agreed and...
2012 American Sentences (so far)
So, I found my pocket journal that went from October 13, 2011 to January 17, 2012. It was a scary moment when I couldn't find it for various reasons. I do not want to think about how a lost journal...
Personal Mythology in Poetry
By the time you read this, I will have likely performed as part of the 2nd piece of the Four Hoarse Men SOundPO project. (See video of the first project here.) Although due to scheduling we're three...
Poems published, Slaughter video
Things are getting close to critical here on the Nelson home front, with Ella Roque due on March 10 and the Cascadia Poetry Festival coming up March 23-25.We could use more registrations for that...
57. Frog Song
After Susan Point’s Nowhere Left. 2000 https://www.mister-toad.com/PacificTreeFrog.html Ghetto - 1605–15; < Italian, orig. the name of an island near Venice where Jews were forced to reside in...
Stellar (Ella) (a Haibun)
Ships sail so far away, even farther, that their smoke is no more than the distant signal of a marine volcano. – Ramón Gomez de la Serna & further still the cosmos. & in the cosmos the soul...
Some February American Sentences
A form Allen Ginsberg invented to “Americanize” haiku, these are snapshots of the moment written by Paul E Nelson, one a day, for over eleven years. These are a sampling from most Februaries of the...
Pig War Residency
Jan 28, 2012 My residency here at the Whiteley Center ends tomorrow, alas. What a tremendous place to think, write &c. Sure, the photos give you a sense of that (my Pig War research photo album...
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....
2018 Postcard Participation
293 people are registered for the 12th August POetry POstcard Fest in 2018. Included are participants from Alberta (1), Alabama (9), Arkansas (1), Arizona (1), British Columbia (1), California (26),...
Postcard Impersonality
Reading Mark Gonnerman's book A Sense of the Whole: Reading Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End I came to Tim Dean's essay on The Other Voice. In the essay he states that in his 40 year...
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.