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
Letter for Diane di Prima Park
30-December-2020 LaMonte Bishop City of San Francisco Parks & Recreation lamonte.bishop@sfgov.org To the Honorable LaMonte Bishop, I am writing to urge you to rename Page-Laguna Park in SF:...
Diane di Prima Solstice Poem
Thank you Leggy Bruck for this: And di Prima fans should know about this: Rename Page-Laguna Mini Park to Diane DiPrima Park Why is this important? PETITION to Rename Page-Laguna Park as “Diane di...
My Personal Universe Deck
What's good for the goose... It was about 20 years ago (2000?) when I first learned about Michael McClure's concept of a Personal Universe Deck and 8 years ago when I took some of my retreat time at...
12.9.2020 American Sentence
The end of 2020 (aside from spawning millions of "good riddance" celebrations) marks the completion of twenty years of daily practice of American Sentences. These (usually) 17 syllable poems, a form...
FLEXIBLE MIND December 3, 2020
Rainier Beach Arts & Crafts Market
I am delighted to be part of the Rainier Beach Arts & Crafts Market, Saturday, December 5 from 11am to 3pm. Thanks to Ellen VanderWey, I'll be displaying books at 8735 Hamlet Ave S, a couple of...
Notes on Being Human Is an Occult Practice
I was excited to see a chapbook with such a provocative title. Magdalena Zurawski is the author and is currently Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia,...
Sharon Doubiago on Diane di Prima
Diane di Prima, August 6, 1929-October 25, 2020 I first learned of Diane di Prima as an actress. She played the part of Lula in the play The Dutchman by Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka). It remains the...
Testimonials
Such sweet testimonials are coming in from participants in the recent Poetics as Cosmology course I facilitated, Oct-Nov 2020: Paul E. Nelson's "Poetics As Cosmology" course begins in a completely...
Paul O Ingram, Rick Rouse (The World is About To Turn)
One can look at one’s Twitter feed, or watch the news to understand how dark things are right now in USAmerica, but if the old cliché is true, that it is darkest before the dawn, we’re in for a...
A Journal of the Plague Years
I like to think of it as projective journalism. Maybe it's becoming a lost art to write and publish history with deep perception hours after events happen, but Susan Zakin and her crew at Journal of...
DaySong Miracle (Past 62) Profiled on SICA-USA
I was delighted to see the SICA-USA blog post written about my new book DaySong Miracle (Past 62). I knew it was coming, but to read the way my Subud brother Jim O'Halloran handled the information...
Memory’s Vault (book)
I had the good fortune last Sunday (May 19) to be invited to participate in a reading at Memory's Vault to celebrate the publication of the Empty Bowl book Memory's Vault: The Poetic Heart of Fort...
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.