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
Diane di Prima R.I.P.
I met Diane di Prima when we brought her to the old SPLAB in Auburn in November 1999. I will never forget that her workshop was happening on a morning when the annual Veterans Day celebration...
McClure’s 88th (A Zoom Reading/Tribute)
This is an update of the post that was used to promote the Zoom reading of the 1995 poem Dolphin Skull by Michael McClure. It was recorded 12N, Tuesday, October 20, 2020. My thanks to Amy Evans...
Ian Boyden Interview (A Forest of Names)
They are 108 poems that “illuminate a hidden landscape in the names of children killed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.” Many of their deaths could have been prevented if not for the shoddy...
A Fly Landed
I missed out on Rattle's Poets Respond AGAIN!
The Art of the Blurb
I have been asked on occasion to write blurbs for friends and acquaintances and, like any other form of writing, it takes some practice. The first thing is to learn what NOT to blurb. Really, if it...
POPO Birthday Bounty
I'm a little stunned by the amount of birthday wishes I am getting for my 59th and it seems a perfect day to share THE CARDS I GOT. Each year I create a photo or video of postcards I have received...
COVID-19 Sonnet
Since the beginning of 2019 I have been writing "prose sonnets" Matt Trease calls them. 14 line prose poems often with an epigraph and sometimes three. I saw the form first in the work of Jack...
Article on American Sentences
Huge thanks (again) to Tim Green of Rattle Magazine who wrote about my practice of American Sentences for The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California. The article is called: I love how Tim changes...
9.11.2020 American Sentence
9.11.2020 - He's at the boat launch pier, w/ rod & reel, fishing for smoked salmon....
PEN POPO2020 Afterword (Postcards from the Pandemic)
In years past I have taken time on the 1st of September to write my POPO afterword. If felt like a ritual to end each extended August with a meditation on what I had done, followed by a photo or...
Postcards from Here, Postcards from Mapes Creek
I had no idea when Bhakti Watts and I moved to Rainier Beach in 2017 how much we would love this neighborhood, how much it would give back to us and shape our lives. And yes, we've each survived...
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...
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.