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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Cascadia and Feminism
The subject of Feminism has been coming up in recent weeks. My interview with Daphne Marlatt touched on it, as she has organized Feminist conferences thirty years ago and identifies as a Feminist....
Early 2014 American Sentences
The first harvest of the new year, my fourteenth with a daily practice of writing one 17 syllable poem. More on American Sentences elsewhere on this site, but for now, a few from 2014: 1.3.14 - A...
Limits of the Heroic
An interesting confluence of events in my life the last couple of weeks which involve a bit of poetics, a bit from one of my recent interviews, Facebook discussions and Feminism. And involves...
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.