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.
Poetry Postcards Black Mountain Style
I was delighted to team up with postcard poet (with a new book!) Margaret Lee for an essay that has been published on the website of the Journal for Black Mountain College Studies. Postcard poets...
Michael Boughn on Jack Clarke
Michael Boughn is a brilliant poet who edited Robert Duncan's mythical H.D. Book, studied with Robin Blaser and co-edited the dangerous website Dispatches from the Poetry Wars, now archived via...
Hamish Todd “Interviews” Paul E Nelson
I met Hamish Todd the first time I went to Red Sky Poetry Theater. I used some language in a poem that was a little outside the regular open mic fare, but he got it and gave me a kind word. That was...
Ed Varney (A Lot of Nada)
It was Michael McClure in about 2004 who suggested I go beyond the U.S. when studying Open Form poetry. That led me to José Kozer (Cuban, though living in Hallandale Beach, FL) and poets in B.C....
Pocket Lint (A New Journal)
I have admired Warren Dean Fulton for years, maybe since I saw some of his cute little chapbooks like the U.S. Sonnets of George Bowering: That was published by Pooka Press in 2007. Warren's been on...
Responding to the Black Mystery School Pianists
I saw this article linked in an article I was reading and then a friend sent it to me, so there was something synchronistic about it right off the bat. “God’s way of remaining anonymous” some wise...
McClure’s Last Book Mule Kick Blues
Michael McClure died one year ago, May 4, 2020 and the last book he wrote will be launched by legendary publisher City Lights May 8, 2021, via Zoom, 3pm. A memorial tribute to Michael with readings...
Armenian Genocide
I was delighted to hear that President Biden announced that for the first time in history the United States recognizes the Armenian genocide perpetrated by Turkey in 1915. See:...
The Wig Maker
How the life story of a woman abandoned by her mother and abused as a child by her father was turned into experimental lyric poetry is the premise of a book by Janet Gallant as told to Sharon Thesen...
Winter in America (Again (A response to the November election)
It was an enormous task to create an anthology, with an open call and eight editors, in 6 weeks, but we did it. Winter in America (Again rightly takes its cue from Gil Scott-Heron and responds...
Zach Charles Book Launch
Ever since Zach Charles and I became friends over two years ago, I have been stunned by his capacity to take in content from the massive information firehouse and turn it into poetry postcards,...
C&P Coffee Company Dec 11 7pm
I'm one of the featured readers on Wednesday, December 11, 2024, at C&P Coffee Company, 5612 California Ave SW. The monthly open mic, facilitated by Leopoldo Seguel, has invited me yet again and...
In Honor of David McCloskey “The Father of Cascadia”
David McCloskey passed away on July 3. In honor of his lifetime of work to create and spread a culture that was deeply connected to the Cascadian bioregion, Cascadian Prophets, which owes more than just its name to his work, we want to share this interview from October, 2013. Find it transcribed on our website.
To listen to the original audio of this interview, click here.
Check out more of what the Lab does here, and listen to more current and archival podcasts on Spotify or on our website.
In Honor of David McCloskey "The Father of Cascadia"
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.