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.
Reading in Courtenay BC
Thanks to the efforts of Ed Varney, I'll give a short reading at ARTFUL Gallery in Courtenay, BC on Sunday, August 28th at 7pm. (526C Cumberland Road.) There will be open mic and there is a...
Claudia Castro Luna Interview (Cipota Under The Moon)
I had the good fortune to interview a former Washington State Poet Laureate, Claudia Castro Luna via Zoom on June 17, 2022. We talked about her new book Cipota Under the Moon, her exodus from El...
Poetics as Cosmology Workshops Fall 2022
Poetics as Cosmology (Intro to Spontaneous Composition) A five week online (Zoom) workshop for people who have had a little experience in spontaneous poetry composition and want more. Join Cascadia...
Margin Shift June 16, 2022!
(This post has been updated to include Tay Stafford, who has just been added to the bill. There WILL be streaming on Facebook for those who can't make it down to Belltown.) I am delighted to read at...
Haiku NW Talk about Poetry Postcard Fest
It has been eleven years since I was a presenter at Haiku North America, on the campus of Fort Worden in 2011. I spoke on the subject of American Sentences, those 17 syllable poems that I have been...
Baler Reviews Haibun de la Serna
I can't begin to tell you how thrilled I am with Pablo Baler's review of my latest book Haibun de la Serna in the new edition of Exacting Clam. He was the person who introduced me to the work of...
Interview on the Found Poems of J.I. Kleinberg
We caught up on May 16, 2022, with longtime Poetry Postcard Fest participant Judy J.I. Kleinberg about her exhibit at the Peter Miller Books in Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood. J.I. Kleinberg...
Inside the Day Song (Workshop)
Get your five page handout loaded with links, prompts and inspirations if you register for this one day workshop before June 10. Take a look inside the course materials from our current workshop...
Pierre Joris Interview (Canto Diurno #1, 2-MAY-2022)
It’s a pretty ambitious goal to write an epic poem in a day. Bernadette Mayer’s Midwinter Day, an epic about the daily routine written on Winter Solstice 1978, is like no other project that I know...
Winter in America (Again Monday, July 21 via Zoom
From Bill O'Daly: Dear Friends and Family, A reading based on Winter in America (Again, an anthology developed in response to the 2024 election by poets Katie Sarah Zale, president of the Arizona...
Resistance as Writing
How can one write poetry about current political events without resorting to invective or rhetoric? Why is this important? Poetry is a use of language that is capable of a kind of depth of being...
Eagle Harbor Book Company Canceled
Dear Faithful Blog Reader! The Winter in America (Again reading scheduled for tonight, Friday, July 11, 2025, has been canceled. The tour's last stop is tomorrow, Saturday, July 12, at 2pm at the...
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.











