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
American Sentences from 2011
I have begun harvesting my American Sentences from this past year. It's always a blast from my recent past to do this and this is eleven years now of writing one of these 17 syllable poems every...
From Pablo Baler The Next Thing: Art in the 21st Century
Dear Paul: I want to keep you in the loop of an Art Book/World-class Anthology worth your attention and support. The title is: THE NEXT THING: ART IN THE 21st CENTURY and it brings together a...
Sam Hamill on Why Poetry Matters
I re-posted this interview on this website and it's gotten about 200 hits and will be translated into Spanish by Hamill's translator, Esteban Moore. An excerpt: The editor of Copper Canyon Press for...
Organic Poetry Essays
I've been migrating my Org Po essays from OrganicPoetry.org to this site. This was the introductory page to the essays on that site. Comments are welcome. A book is coming out in 2012 from...
How George Bowering Writes Books
I never get tired of George Bowering. Some people say writing about writing is boring. They're usually right, but Bowering's writing on writing is fascinating. Take this bit excerpted from his new...
Hoarse #5 Release Party
I will be reading: HOARSE When Sunday, December 18, 2011 Time 7:00pm until 12:00am Where The Snug Room @ College Inn Pub, 4006 University Way NE, Seattle, WA Description The 5th release of HOARSE is...
Seattle’s Poetry Scene
Seattle’s Poetry Scene Seattle likes to pride itself on being one of America’s Most Literate Cities. I pay attention to these annual pronouncements for about 2 minutes when they inevitably make the...
Brenda Hillman Interview
Brenda Hillman finished off the SPLAB 2011 Visiting Poets Series in fine fashion November 11 and 12 with a brilliant talk on Innovation and Activism in Poetry Friday the 11th (Veterans Day), a...
American Prophets
Paul Nelson first started conducting interviews in his early radio days, Chicago 1980. In 1990 he was promoted to News & Community Affairs Director of KKNW (106.9 in Seattle) and over the next...
Jargon 20: Passage (by Michael McClure)
I checked mail yesterday and Michael McClure’s package came. It was an original copy of Jargon 20: Passage, published in 1956 by Jonathan Williams. I immediately sat down and read the whole book...
Planet Drum on Cascadia
The premier organization dedicated to the concept of bioregionalism is the Planet Drum Foundation, founded by Peter Berg and Judy Goldhaft. Their latest newsletter is out with a special offer that...
Wanda Coleman 2002 Interview
Going through the SPLAB (IPiPP) audio archives thanks to 4Culture, I came across this interview I'd forgotten I had. Wanda Coleman from January 2002, first aired in February 2002. In it she talks...
George Bowering 2005 Interview
I first met George Bowering at the Victoria School of Writing Summer School in 2005. It was the tenth anniversary of that summer school and since then has ceased operations. I had taken a weeklong...
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.