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.
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...
Making Peace (Journal of the Plague Years)
Journal of the Plague Years saw fit to publish my poem Making Peace, about the Russian invasion of Ukraine: https://www.journaloftheplagueyears.ink/blog/making-peace I love this publication and...
Greg Bem Reviews Haibun de la Serna
Huge thanks to Greg Bem who has authored a five star review of Haibun de la Serna. CINCO ESTRELLAS in the immortal words of jazz pianist Elisha Gullixson. Greg writes on his blog and on Goodreads:...
Poetry for Ukraine
I recently participated in a couple of readings dedicated to addressing the Russian war in Ukraine. One event I had a hand in organizing. I was honored to be asked to read for the other. March 15...
Poetics as Cosmology (Talk given to Cal State L.A., March 21, 2022)
We do what we know before we know what we do. Charles Olson,as quoted by Robert Creeley inpoets of the cities of new york and san francisco 1950-1965 (Dutton ’74). p. 62 This subject is near and...
Proprioception
Ever since Fred Wah mentioned proprioception in an interview we did that was posted on YouTube and made into a podcast, I have been plunged back into a study of this capacity. It's how human and...
Poetry Postcards and Zen
An amazing testimonial for the Poetry Postcard Fest though it was not intended to serve that purpose. It is from Kosho Itagaki of Temple Eishoji (where I sit three days a week.) He writes: 🚤...
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...
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.