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.
American Sentences Talk
The second edition of my book of 17 syllable poems, American Sentences, was published in time for my 60th birthday party on September 22, 2021. Saturday, I'll have a chance to talk about the form,...
60th Birthday Interview of Paul E Nelson by Greg E Bem
Over the last few years there has been no one more active at reviewing my work and bringing exposure to it than Greg Bem. He is the P.R. guy you'd kill for, with video and audio editing skills and a...
100 Thousand Poets for Change
I'm delighted to be part of an event which has been happening for many years, organized and conceived of by Michael Rothenberg. 100 Thousand Poets for Change is the event, one for which I helped...
1st Podcast Robert Lashley
I have been asked many times: "Do you have a podcast?" Now, I can say "yes." Via the non-profit I founded in 1993, now known as the Cascadia Poetics LAB, we have launched Cascadian Prophets....
Paul @ 60 (You Are Invited)
It was 30 years ago when I was rather new at creating public affairs radio interviews, at age 29, when I had Dr. Bill Mitchell on the program discussing How To Live to 120: Bill made it to 60 and I...
Cascadian Zen
What is the nature of the bioregion known as Cascadia? How is this insight expressed by the people who live, work, practice, and play here? Is there a connection between Zen practice, broadly...
Samthology: A Tribute to Sam Hamill
by Paul E Nelson (Editor), Cate Gable (Editor), Lyn Coffin (Editor) A tribute to Sam Hamill in verse, essays and an exclusive interview, edited by Paul E Nelson, Ian Boyden and Cate Gable. Poems in...
Make it True Meets Medusario
Edited by Jose Kozer, Paul E Nelson, and Thomas Walton Make It True meets Medusario, a bilingual poetry anthology, brings together poets from divergent languages, cultures, and aesthetics to create...
A Time Before Slaughter: Pig War & Other Songs of Cascadia
By Paul E. Nelson In this epic poem, Paul Nelson re-enacts the history of Auburn, Washington, originally known as the town of Slaughter. Written in the spirit of William Carlos Williams, Charles...
American Prophets: Interviews With Thinkers, Activists, Poets and Visionaries
by Paul E. Nelson (Author), Allen Ginsberg, Wanda Coleman A book of sixteen interviews taken from the best of over 600 conducted by Seattle poet Paul E Nelson. The book includes an A-List of...
AWP Readings
I am delighted to participate in two readings at AWP which in L.A. this year. One is at the Asterism booth, #750, Thursday, March 27 at 11am. Asterism has picked up much of the slack of SPD's...
Imbolc 2025 Dharma Position Daysong
I feel very fortunate to have successfully navigated another daysong, a day-long poem writing ritual. I set aside Imbolc 2025 to write, as that pagan holiday (& celebration of return of the...
Anne Tardos The Always Already Absent Present
What a joy to interview Anne Tardos about her new book The Always Already Absent Present. The audio is online thanks to Zach Charles and here is the video, recorded March 4, 2025. My introduction:...
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.