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.
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...
Full Earth Day Agenda
Cascadia Poetics Lab Board Member Jason Wirth and I are leading a clean-up of Chinook Beach Park on Friday, April 22 from 1-3pm. We will have some garbage bags and a couple of pickers, but feel free...
Hoa Nguyen Interview (A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure)
I had the good fortune to interview Hoa Nguyen on April 14, 2022 via Zoom about her book A Thousand Times You Lost Your Treasure. The video is embedded below. My post on the Cascadia Poetics Lab...
Haibun de la Serna Official Launch
Thanks to Koon Woon of Goldfish Press and Leopoldo Seguel of Poetry Bridge, the official launch of my new book Haibun de la Serna happens Wednesday, April 13 at C&P Coffee Company and online via...
Runes, Revision, Wyrd
It is such a satisfying feeling when I draw the rune Laguz during my daily morning divination. I draw a rune daily as it gives me feedback on the energies/archetypes I am swirling out on any given...
Matt Trease Interview The Outside
Matt Trease moved to Seattle, became a postcard poet, has long helped run the Margin Shift reading in Seattle, has been a board member of the Cascadia Poetics Lab for 8 years and is my good friend....
Kosho, Basho, Sam, Michael
If you did not know, I participated in the Jukai ceremony on December 11, 2023, under the direction of Kosho Itagaki, at Temple Eishoji in Rainier Beach. I took refuge in the Buddha, the dharma and...
Interviewing the Interviewer: Paul E Nelson
My appreciation goes out to Melissa Lemay, who turned the tables and interviewed ME about doing interviews, American Sentences, the Poetry Postcard Fest and Allen Ginsberg, among other topics. That...
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.










