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
No Sonics & the Rising Feminine
Forgive me Sonics fans, but I view the Seattle City Council vote yesterday (5.2.16) as emblematic of everything good about Seattle. The Council voted against a sale of a city street to would-be...
533. Wait for Latté
One of the cards I brought back from my 2014’s trip to Wisconsin that was part of my work in the 2015 August Poetry Postcard Fest. This one with allusions to soul-building with a nod to an old poem...
55. Prince (R.I.P.)
55. Prince I always thought it was “cuss, fight & bleed” as the reasons one Prince Rogers Nelson cited as warnings for parents hoping to raise healthy children but “breed.” How a Nelson could do...
Postcards for Garcia
A follow up to the post about my recent trip to Taos, New Mexico. Amalio Madueño is community development specialist and brilliant poet of Yaqui and Tarahumara heritage. I am indebted to Amalio for...
532. Old as the Devil
ANOTHER devil reference in this latest of the 2015 August Poetry Postcard Fest and an image of one to boot. I love how the neighbors across the street use a pole with netting at the end to harvest...
Taos April 2016
I have just returned from Taos, New Mexico, where I was invited to read at the Jazz & Poetry event produced by the Taos Bebop Jazz Society and Analog Eric and Judy Katzman. I had first gone to...
Global Warming Sentences
In my two most recent readings of American Sentences, I used as an ordering device the month of April. I went through my manuscript and copied off all of the poems written in April that were...
South Seattle Emerald 2nd Anniversary
One of the great delights of the Internet Age is that the local newspaper, now all but gone in our society, has been reimagined as the neighborhood blog. I envisioned this 20 years ago while living...
531. Rat Access
Another Salish Art card from the 2015 August Poetry Postcard Fest and one I’ve used before. We miss our cats, not that they would have been able to ward off attic rats. There is just something...
Kale Flower Yellow
Haibun de la Serna: 99 Haibun
by Paul E Nelson June 2022 Review by Pablo Baler Paul Nelson’s Haibun moves with the spirit of Ramón Gómez de la Serna’s greguerías, one of the unclassifiable micro-genres Gómez invented in his...
Fred Wah on The Simple, Serial Form and MHT
It has been over a decade since I first began to try to get Fred Wah to sit down and have an interview about his (now) 60 years of work in poetry. When we did sit in front of our respective Zoom...
Wildlife of the Underworld (Plants & Poetry Journal)
I'm delighted to have a couple of FLEXIBLE MIND poems in the new book from Plants & Poetry Journal, Wildlife of the Underworld. Susan Landgraf! Cole Swenson! Jeffrey Beam! & others. I can't...
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.