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
Cinquains
SO, World Poetry Day is under way and my 8am lecture is in the bag. We had an inspired participant who took on the task of writing a Cinquain, a five line poem with a syllable structure of...
Paul Interviewed by Ethelbert Miller
I was delighted to be interviewed today by legendary poet, literary organizer and radio host E. Ethelbert Miller for his On The Margin show on Washington, DC's WPFW. You can hear the interview here...
Free Cup of Coffee
Did you know March 21 is World Poetry Day? Yeah, UNESCO, the cultural arm of the United Nations decided that in 1999. Julius Meinl, a European coffee-roasting company upped the ante a few years ago...
RIP Darius Brusaferro
I was fortunate enough to meet Darius Brusaferro, a long-time Subud member, at one of the first Subud Menucha gatherings I attended, perhaps 2009 or 2010. I learned today on Facebook that he died in...
Resist Much/Obey Little
I am thinking of it as the most important anthology of political poetry since Sam Hamill's "Poets Against The War." "Resist Much Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance" is a 738 page virtual...
Once in Blockadia: Stephen Collis Interview
On my way north to the Comox Valley to assist organizers of the Cascadia Poetry Festival to be held in Cumberland, September 8-10, 2017, I stopped in Delta, BC, to interview Stephen Collis about his...
A Few Postcard Notes
I'm just about finished with the 2017 Peace Postcards project. There are 28 poets on my list and without sending a card to myself, that means I had 27 poems to write and will probably get the last...
The Road Diet Starts at My House
(Huge thanks to Marcus Green for publishing my essay on the success of the Rainier Avenue South Road Diet. Click on photo to see it on the South Seattle Emerald website along with some other...
James Baldwin Is Not…
Last Friday I saw, for the second time, the Raoul Peck masterpiece "I Am Not Your Negro." A very astute New York Times review by A.O. Scott suggests that the film utilizing the words of James...
#Ides of Trump (A Postcard Project)
Here's one of those Facebook memes that when I first saw it I thought "I'll pay attention if it comes around again." Then August Poetry Postcarder Alley Greymond re-posted it, so I shared it and am...
Interview with Claudia Castro Luna in Poetry NW
I'm delighted to have a version of my June 2022 interview with Claudia Castro Luna published in Poetry NW. Thank you Bill Carty. Here is an excerpt: There’s war raging in Ukraine, a general feeling...
Upcoming Readings and Workshops All Free
MONDAY I'm delighted to be reading for Raul Sanchez Monday night at HeartSpace in Lake City. I've known Raul from the local poetry community going back almost 30 years. (1994, at Auburn's Best Café...
Poetics As Cosmology in West Seattle
Thanks to the support of 4Culture, I am presenting a workshop I have been developing for a few years in West Seattle starting this Friday. 1pm, Oct 7, 21 & 28, 2022. There will be discussion,...
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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