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
Haibun de la Serna: 99 Haibun
by Paul E Nelson June 2022 Review by Pablo Baler Paul Nelson’s Haibun moves with the spirit of Ramón Gómez de la Serna’s greguerías, one of the unclassifiable micro-genres Gómez invented in his...
Fred Wah on The Simple, Serial Form and MHT
It has been over a decade since I first began to try to get Fred Wah to sit down and have an interview about his (now) 60 years of work in poetry. When we did sit in front of our respective Zoom...
Wildlife of the Underworld (Plants & Poetry Journal)
I'm delighted to have a couple of FLEXIBLE MIND poems in the new book from Plants & Poetry Journal, Wildlife of the Underworld. Susan Landgraf! Cole Swenson! Jeffrey Beam! & others. I can't...
Ode to Bill Turner
I was very saddened to hear about the death of NW painter William Turner. He died at age 81 on Christmas Eve. I felt Bill was a genius painter and tremendously under-appreciated. Maybe that changes...
Some 2021 American Sentences & Other Poems
I made it to Clatskanie, Oregon, birthplace of Raymond Carver, to have a writing retreat in a cabin on an organic farm. Of course there would be a snow storm and a 90 minute delay on Hwy 30 getting...
Cascadia, Water, Compassion
Each day after Bhakti and I have our morning beverage (a matcha latté for me, coffee for her) I sit at this here Mac and journal about the previous day. Before...
FLEXIBLE MIND THIS CLOUD IS A LIFE
I have been fortunate to facilitate online workshops since Fall 2020. It is one of the great personal developments of the pandemic restructuring that we're experiencing right now and, of course, if...
Michael McClure Archives Simon Fraser University
On Friday, November 12, 2021, Adelia MacWilliam and I visited the W.A.C. Bennett Special Collections Library at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. to investigate the extensive Michael McClure...
RIP Pat Martino (Observer of environment, including guitar)
Thirteen months ago I started facilitating workshops again and I never knew how much joy and inspiration could come from engaging people at a deep level via Zoom poetry workshops. And before I get...
Beat Breath for EBSN
I am delighted to continue my association with the European Beat Studies Network again this Sunday, as part of their 2021 Zoom conference. I am also delighted to present on the topic of Beat Breath...
Winter in America (Again (A response to the November election)
It was an enormous task to create an anthology, with an open call and eight editors, in 6 weeks, but we did it. Winter in America (Again rightly takes its cue from Gil Scott-Heron and responds...
Zach Charles Book Launch
Ever since Zach Charles and I became friends over two years ago, I have been stunned by his capacity to take in content from the massive information firehouse and turn it into poetry postcards,...
C&P Coffee Company Dec 11 7pm
I'm one of the featured readers on Wednesday, December 11, 2024, at C&P Coffee Company, 5612 California Ave SW. The monthly open mic, facilitated by Leopoldo Seguel, has invited me yet again and...
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.