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
Upcoming Readings: Sonic Bloom, Port Townsend, Wedgwood
I will be doing readings from American Sentences at two upcoming gigs and one of work completely created for Greg Bem's latest literary adventure. Dates: Wednesday, Jan 20 - 9pm, at Sonic Bloom -...
Cascadia Poetry Events
There are a few developments with the Make It True anthology and the combination of bioregionalism and poetry. I hope you'll help us get the word out about some events coming up. It was great to...
David Bowie (1947-2016)
This started out as a Facebook comment, but I have to document some of my thoughts on this day we find out David Bowie has died of liver cancer. (He died yesterday, January 10, 2016). I was the...
521. Composed in Solidarity
Since 2004, I've had a little soft spot in my heart for Muslims given that my spiritual practice (the Latihan Kejiwaan of Subud) was created (discovered?/invented?) by a Muslim. (I was initiated...
Greg Bem Reviews American Sentences
I get nervous sending out review copies of my new books. Fortunately, I took Sam Hamill's advice from a few years ago to heart and am not in a rush to publish. At least I don't think I am. But my...
Vancouver/Victoria Make It True Readings
2016 marks Year Four in a twenty year cultural exploration of the Cascadia bioregion. The methodology is poetry and several projects are coming to fruition. Here are some key events in that effort:...
A Subud New Year’s Eve
520. Devil Wrestling
It seems as if “demons” or the “devil” is a thread that ran through this year’s fest for me. “Nafsu” is a related Indonesian word that might better be better translated as “lower forces.” Not...
Southern Cascadia Poet Jerry Martien
In September 2015 I had the chance to interview a poet and long-time bioregionalist Jerry Martien on the waterfront in Eureka, California. With Jim Dodge, he's one of the two poets from extreme...
34. Eighty-Seven Remarkable (or Fun) Things about Paul E Nelson Sr. &/Or Charles Olson on What Would’ve Been their 87th &/or 105th Birthdays, Dec 27, 2015.
34. Eighty-Seven Remarkable (or Fun) Things about Paul E Nelson Sr. &/Or Charles Olson on What Would’ve Been their 87th &/or 105th Birthdays, Dec 27, 2015. A remarkable thing is that Pop...
Some 2021 American Sentences & Other Poems
I made it to Clatskanie, Oregon, birthplace of Raymond Carver, to have a writing retreat in a cabin on an organic farm. Of course there would be a snow storm and a 90 minute delay on Hwy 30 getting...
Cascadia, Water, Compassion
Each day after Bhakti and I have our morning beverage (a matcha latté for me, coffee for her) I sit at this here Mac and journal about the previous day. Before...
FLEXIBLE MIND THIS CLOUD IS A LIFE
I have been fortunate to facilitate online workshops since Fall 2020. It is one of the great personal developments of the pandemic restructuring that we're experiencing right now and, of course, if...
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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