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PAUL E NELSON

Cascadia Poetry Festival 8 Paul E Nelson at the microphone

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

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6.6.16 American Sentences

Yes, I am still writing daily American Sentences. (One a day since 1.1.01.) Jim O'Halloran and I had a gas Friday night (6.3.16) at Another Read Through in Portland on Mississippi and read June...

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Elizabeth Woods Postcard Interview

Elizabeth Woods checks in from Down Under with a Postcard Fest interview. An excerpt: EW-The festival is now in its tenth year, what are some of the notable aspects a changes you have seen along the...

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American Sentences in PDX

It will be my first reading in Portland in over ten years. Can't remember the exact time and place of the last reading and it happens Friday, June 3 @7pm at Another Read Through in Portland, Oregon....

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Sam O'Hana April 16, 2025

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.

Sam O’Hana on Opening Poetry to the Working Class

by Paul E Nelson