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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Bioregionalism or Endless Garbage
There needs to be a new idea or a more fleshed out idea of what a human being is in reference to sharing the biosphere with other life. - Peter Berg This is part of what essentially is Peter Berg's...
Uncascadian
It was a long day, but one filled with vision and inspiration last Saturday (Dec 6, 2014) as I was part of a Board Retreat for CascadiaNow! I agreed to be Board President when asked by founder...
100 Poems After the Japanese
Having finished back in May a series of poems inspired by the classic Japanese anthology, I come to it now after letting the poems sit for a while, and re-read them in the spirit of seeing how my...
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.