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
AWP Readings
I am delighted to participate in two readings at AWP which in L.A. this year. One is at the Asterism booth, #750, Thursday, March 27 at 11am. Asterism has picked up much of the slack of SPD's...
Imbolc 2025 Dharma Position Daysong
I feel very fortunate to have successfully navigated another daysong, a day-long poem writing ritual. I set aside Imbolc 2025 to write, as that pagan holiday (& celebration of return of the...
Anne Tardos The Always Already Absent Present
What a joy to interview Anne Tardos about her new book The Always Already Absent Present. The audio is online thanks to Zach Charles and here is the video, recorded March 4, 2025. My introduction:...
Stephan Torre
One of the great joys in participating in the recent Cascadia: A Braided Land event at UBCO was meeting 84 year old Northern Cascadia poet Stephan Torre. With roots in Big Sur back in the days...
Notes for Christo Rey High School Talk on Bioregionalism
24-FEB-2025 How I got into radio. 1974, Lane Tech, cut-off record:Radio career: 1980-2026, Chicago, Baltimore, West Palm Beach, Appleton, Peoria, Seattle in 1988. Transition from D.J. to Community...
Nature Talk Release Party and Reading
I'm delighted to participate in the celebration of a new book and the expansion of a literary community organized by Greg Bem. Carbonation Press of Spokane was founded by Greg in late 2023 and this...
Cascadia in Okanagan
I am delighted to participate in Cascadia: A Braided Land, at UBC Okanagan March 1 & 2. This event is the vision of Slava Bart, with assistance from Harold Rhenisch. Here is a description: I met...
Open Parenthesis (of Winter in America (Again
Greg Bem is the publisher of Carbonation Press and the new anthology Winter in America (Again: Poets Respond to 2024 Election. He got an email from someone asking him why the parenthesis before the...
Andrew Schelling Interview on Forests, Temples, Glacial Rivers
It is said of the poetry of Andrew Schelling that he is “locating language in watersheds and continental ridges, in rocks and plants. A poet of ancient texts and teachings, Schelling tracks the...
Winter in America (Again (A response to the November election)
It was an enormous task to create an anthology, with an open call and eight editors, in 6 weeks, but we did it. Winter in America (Again rightly takes its cue from Gil Scott-Heron and responds...
Ralph Towner 1940-2026
One of my greatest disappointments in life is that I never saw Ralph Towner in concert. He died today in Rome. There are many places online where you can get the details of his life and career and I...
Celebration of Koon Woon
On Wednesday night at C&P Coffee Company in West Seattle, longtime Seattle poet and publisher Koon Woon was honored by his friends, by poets who he mentored and those who love him. Here is the...
An Ocean of Time—The Poetry of Sam Hamill Set to Song
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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