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.
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...
2.8.17 – American Sentence
2.8.17 - Spiders can’t get outta sinks, palmetto bugs can’t get outta bathtubs. #AmericanSentences #LakeWorthWhereTheTropicsBegin #SorryNoPhoto
Visiting Jaco’s Grave
It is hard to believe that it's been almost twenty years since the legendary bassist for Weather Report, Jaco Pastorius, died due to complications from a beating he took from a bouncer at a South...
Nuchatlitz, Artful
Bhakti and I were delighted to have been offered a chance to visit Nuchatlitz, BC, thanks to Adelia MacWilliam and Shannon Bailey. It required a long drive to Tahsis, BC, with a ferry just to get...
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...
In Honor of David McCloskey “The Father of Cascadia”
David McCloskey passed away on July 3. In honor of his lifetime of work to create and spread a culture that was deeply connected to the Cascadian bioregion, Cascadian Prophets, which owes more than just its name to his work, we want to share this interview from October, 2013. Find it transcribed on our website.
To listen to the original audio of this interview, click here.
Check out more of what the Lab does here, and listen to more current and archival podcasts on Spotify or on our website.
In Honor of David McCloskey "The Father of Cascadia"
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.
Check out more of what the Lab does here, and listen to more current and archival podcasts on Spotify or on our website.
To get original poetry right in your mailbox this summer, check out the Poetry Postcard Fest.