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
Reactions to a Fractured Nation
I am delighted to be performing with Jim O'Halloran, master flute player, composer and band leader, as part of the Columbia City Gallery's upcoming exhibit Reactions to a Fractured Nation. It is...
WA 129 Release Party
The reading/book release party for WA129, the Washington State Poet Laureate Tod Marshall’s state-wide poetry anthology, is happening Thursday, April 13, 2017 at 5:00 pm in Olympia. The book...
Paul w/ Carletta & 2 other poets @ Margin Shift
It is easily the most adventurous reading series in Seattle. Margin Shift happens now at the funky Common Area Maintenance in Belltown, essentially kitty corner (or do you say katty corner) from the...
Miles & Quincy Troupe & Coltrane
Delighted to be part of a stellar weekend of Jazz and Poetry in Taos, New Mexico, April 7 and 8 with featured poet Quincy Troupe! Two nights of Jazz and Poetry, the second of which I'll emcee and...
Paul Reads at Jackson St. Jazzwalk
Jackson Street was once the epicenter of Jazz in Seattle. Not sure there is one anymore, but you can hear live Jazz in town at places like Tula's, Jazz Alley, the Royal Room and other venues. On...
Joanne Kyger 1934-2017
It was with great sadness yesterday that I learned, from a brief Facebook post by Michael Rothenberg, that Joanne Kyger had died at her Bolinas home on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. No other details...
In Search of Color Everywhere
My planned 12N presentation for World Poetry Day was In Search of Color Everywhere and other African-American poetry. This title comes from an anthology edited by Ethelbert Miller. I had the honor...
World Poetry Day (Seriality)
At the 11am presentation as part of my World Poetry Day/Free Coffee celebration at Caffé Umbria (Tutta Bella), I talked about seriality. In my interview with Nate Mackey 5 or so years ago, he said...
#IdesofTrump Report
On March 15, 2017, people gathered around the United States to write postcards to the 45th President of the United States, El Caudillo Analfabetico, SCROTUS and let him know what they thought of his...
World Poetry
Any self-respecting World Poetry Day would not be complete without poetry from around the world, so in the second hour, I read from Poems for the Millennium: Russia's Anna Akhmatova (from "Poem...
January Workshop Registration Open
A five week workshop which now has most of the same participants going into year three is over. I received a wonderful testimonial from Ann Graham Walker: I think you can take a lot of credit for...
Nina Menkes Producer of Brainwashed: Sex Camera Power
Thanks to a member of my Subud spiritual community, I was alerted to a new documentary about gender relations in Hollywood and a thesis by a director that says the "visual rhetoric" of camera angles...
Poetics as Cosmology Workshops in Des Moines
I am grateful to 4Culture and the Des Moines Arts Commission for the support of three free workshops next month. Poetics as Cosmology is the title of a workshop I have been facilitating online for...
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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