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
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Margin Shift Reading Series
It has been described by one Seattle writer as a reading series that leans toward: "the academic, conceptual and slightly Canadian." It is Margin Shift, a new poetry reading series run by a...
Hillman City Haibun 9 Anagrams
It was probably in 1995 or '96 that Danika Dinsmore made me aware of a form of poetry called Present Beau, a kind of poem that employs the restraint of using only the letters in someone's name in...
After the Japanese 41-44
This series of poems, posted four at a time and archived here, continues with some written on a short retreat in Marblemount, WA, near North Cascades National Park. They are all written in response...
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.