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
Ruth Lepson/Miriam Nichols on Charles Olson
Wonderful to see the review of Letters for Olson by Brooks Johnson in Hyperallergenic and just to have this book in the world. The headline of the article states well this book's theme: In Letters...
Ed Varney Interview
Ed Varney is a Canadian poet, visual artist and curator who lives on Vancouver Island. I had the good fortune to interview him in August 2016 at his home near Cumberland, BC. I've waited until today...
John Olson’s Broken Justy
The essential core of any project is to open. Open, open, open. Create a state of total nakedness, an anima mundi, a connection with the world-soul that is non-judgmental and quick to excite. It's...
American Sentences Reviewed
Michael Dylan Welch, who has been tracking my commitment to American Sentences for many years, made good on his promise to write a review of the book and wrote a very astute and fair one. I liked...
Latin American Neo-Baroque
Senses of Distortion (Pablo Baler Interview)Conducted at Cal State University's Golden Eagle radio station on November 14, 2016. Our thanks to Jasmine Salgado and Golden Eagle radio.) The objective...
How to Survive Trump? (Cascadia Knute says)
Perhaps it's vindication for suggesting Bernie Sanders was a candidate more in line with traditional Democratic Party values, or the yuge desire to see an end...
Visiting Corita
I had a vague memory of the work of Sister Corita Kent when I saw the Portland Art Museum's exhibition of her work in August. The "Love Stamp" (back when stamps were .22c) did remind me that I'd...
Wanda Coleman @ 70
Wanda Coleman did not live to be 70, but today would have been her 70th birthday and as I go back to her work in preparation for a celebration of her memory at Beyond Baroque in L.A. today, I feel...
Footsteps Anthology Benefits Homeless Vets
Thanks to the tirelessness and vision of Doug Johnson, Footsteps, a poetry anthology to benefit Homeless Vets, which I co-edited, is being released tonight and there will be a candlelight vigil in...
Post-Election Blues
Two poems (or a poem and an excerpt) and a bunch of graphics come to mind today as I help friends deal with what they see as catastrophic election results. I am an optimistic person, so I can...
Postcards, Poetics as Cosmology, Embodied
The 2022 Postcard season is drawing to an end and I am delighted we have 17 complete groups this year and a tie for our best participation ever, 544. I have completed writing and mailing my 31 cards...
Reading in Courtenay BC
Thanks to the efforts of Ed Varney, I'll give a short reading at ARTFUL Gallery in Courtenay, BC on Sunday, August 28th at 7pm. (526C Cumberland Road.) There will be open mic and there is a...
Claudia Castro Luna Interview (Cipota Under The Moon)
I had the good fortune to interview a former Washington State Poet Laureate, Claudia Castro Luna via Zoom on June 17, 2022. We talked about her new book Cipota Under the Moon, her exodus from El...
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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