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.
Cascadia Poetry Festival
Friend, just 3 weeks until the 4th Cascadia Poetry Festival. I hope you will consider attending. We need your support of this event, which is the most ambitious thing I have ever attempted to do. My...
RIP Bridget A. Nutting
Sad to report that one of the longtime August Poetry Postcard Fest participants, Bridget Nutting of Vancouver, Washington, died yesterday, Sunday, October 9, 2016. From her son Josh: On Sunday...
Blue River Writers Gathering 2016
So much to share with the preparations for the 4th Cascadia Poetry Festival Nov 3-6, with the last day of our fundraising campaign to install a modest plaque to honor the memory of Denise Levertov...
Cascadia IV (I Did Not Build That)
I'm thinking of the controversy from an event during the 2012 U.S. Presidential campaign. It's the You Didn't Build That notion and was the response by less conscious people about the nature of how...
Denise Levertov Plaque
I've never attempted anything like this before, but have had some potential poetry plaques that were discussed, but plans fell through. This one is going to happen. I am working with Jayne DeHaan of...
Demise of Mental-Rational Ontology
It never ceases to amaze to me to see how connections in this world are made, how, in the words of Michael McClure: "We swirl out what we are and watch what returns." Case in point, a lodger coming...
2016 Postcards I Got (Video)
There's not much more I can say about the 2016 August Poetry Postcard Fest that I did not say in the first of two videos that I created today (Sept 7, 2016): And to pick out highlights is so...
August Poetry Postcard Fest 2016 Afterword
Such a bittersweet feeling to drop off my last three poetry postcards at the post office. Even though there is a mailbox downstairs here at the swinging Angeline and a mailbox on the corner of...
Chani Nicholas, Latihan and Postcards
I love it when different parts of my life intersect, reinforce, inform one another, validate, how ever you want to put it. It took an Einstein, I am told, to say: "Coincidence is God's way of...
Making Peace (Journal of the Plague Years)
Journal of the Plague Years saw fit to publish my poem Making Peace, about the Russian invasion of Ukraine: https://www.journaloftheplagueyears.ink/blog/making-peace I love this publication and...
Greg Bem Reviews Haibun de la Serna
Huge thanks to Greg Bem who has authored a five star review of Haibun de la Serna. CINCO ESTRELLAS in the immortal words of jazz pianist Elisha Gullixson. Greg writes on his blog and on Goodreads:...
Poetry for Ukraine
I recently participated in a couple of readings dedicated to addressing the Russian war in Ukraine. One event I had a hand in organizing. I was honored to be asked to read for the other. March 15...
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.


