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.
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...
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...
Sam Hamill Official Obituary [May 9, 1943 – April 14, 2018]
When the first poetry books from Copper Canyon Press went on sale in 1972, they were revelatory showing that the humble technology of the book could be, and indeed should be, an artifact of...
Sam @ 70
When I started getting more interested in poetry, early 90s (which does not seem like such a long time ago) I'd heard rumors about this curmudgeon in the Seattle poetry community. He was gruff, but...
Socialize Facebook
As I write this, the founder of Facebook is apologizing to the U.S. Congress for the data breach that is being referred to as the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Not only has the confidential personal...
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.