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.
Important Dates
Summer is supposed to be a lazy time with a lot of loafing, picnics, softball, kayak rides and other ways in which -- as George Gershwin put it - "the livin' is easy." Throw in year 11 of a poetry...
Postcards for Charlottesville
From Lucia Sanford: Dear Paul, This is my third year participating in the Postcard Poetry Fest. I live in Charlottesville, Virginia. I am still too raw and stunned to write a personal note or poem...
Oct 9 Postcard Panel
It's in YEAR ELEVEN which is hard to believe, but the August Poetry Postcard Fest started in 2007 by Lana Ayers and me is going as well as it ever has. With the launch of the poetry postcard...
Nurse Log Poem at Bradner Gardens
I think it might be seven times now that I have been invited to read poems by Jim O'Halloran at his annual concert at Bradner Gardens. One of the jewels of Seattle's P-Patch system of community...
Two Countries Anthology
Was having after-party drinks and tacos with Nadine Maestas and we were commiserating about the intensity of people of Latino descent. When you have a name like Nadine Antoinette Maestas, and you...
POetry POstcard Update (APPF11 2017)
There is less than a week to sign up for the 11th August POetry POstcard Fest. We have 5 and a half complete groups so far. Last year we had seven complete groups and there are many who love to...
August POetry POstcard Fest Year 11 Official Call
The August Poetry Postcard Fest was initiated in 2007 by poets Paul Nelson and Lana Ayers. 2017 marks the eleventh year of the fest and this is your official call. Directions to participate in the...
The Hanners: Husband & Wife Postcarders
It's almost 4th of July which means August is coming. August for me has become synonymous with the heart of summer because of my poetry postcard habit. This year is the 11th year of the August...
5th Cascadia Poetry Fest – Tacoma Oct 12-15
A few months ago I changed the header of this here website once again and added the phrase "Twenty Year Cascadia Bioregional Cultural Investigation." I've blogged about it a few times...
Charles Potts Interview
John Oliver Simon, former director of California Poets in the Schools and recipient of an NEA grant for translation, called Charles Potts “…the greatest poet born in Idaho since Ezra Pound…and one...
FLEXIBLE MIND poem 28-JAN-2023 If you arouse the thought of bringing
I was gifted another poem in the series FLEXIBLE MIND yesterday. That I am studying Zen now is a huge asset to this series of poems based on a Michael McClure poem from his series Touching The Edge:...
Negative Capability in Painting
I am delighted to have been accorded the pleasure of moderating a panel of painters on the subject of Negative Capability. Details:Gallery 110 will be hosting a panel discussion featuring Carol...
Brenda Hillman Interview on In A Few Minutes Before Later
On December 12, 2022 I had the honor to again interview Brenda Hillman. This time it was on Zoom about her new book In A Few Minutes Before Later. The audio is available as part of the Cascadian...
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.
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To get original poetry right in your mailbox this summer, check out the Poetry Postcard Fest.

