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
Pig War Poetry & Pictures
Although the gathered group was small, they were feisty enough to take on the fierce winds that greeted our Guided Poetry Walk at the American Camp on San Juan Island last Saturday (Apr 11, 2015)....
ATJ 53-56 (Death of the Imagination)
I get a kick out of certain Facebook threads and, yes, probably spend too much time there. You can argue with an idiot, but even if you win, you're only a little better than an idiot and I guess I...
Footsteps – Call for Poems
Doug Johnson of Cave Moon Press has invited me to edit a book that will benefit homeless veterans. The call is below and a pdf attached so you can spread the news far and wide. This is a worthwhile...
Cascadia Update
The 3rd Cascadia Poetry Festival is three weeks away in Nanaimo, BC, and unlike the first two, it is in Canada and it is being run by people who attended at least one of the previous events. This is...
Pig War Camp Walk San Juan Island
I have been invited by Mike Vouri to talk about the Pig War and my manuscript, Pig War & Other Songs of Cascadia, Saturday, April 11, at 1PM at the American Camp on San Juan Island, and to take...
Hillman City Haibun (Early Lilacs)
3.29.15 - John Olson’s right about early lilacs - March is the new April. Facebook, being what it is, is a source of exchange that can yield moments like this. A recognition of certain facets of...
First Quarter 2015 American Sentences
I started to harvest my American Sentences after filling up my latest pocket journal and by the time I finished that harvest, I was halfway done with another pocket journal. So goes the writing time...
After The Japanese 49-52
The last three of the poems in this series written in Marblemount, WA, seem so distant given the contrast between last year's winter snow and this year's winter-of-no-winter. Also a year ago the AWP...
Seattle (City of No Lit Crit)
If you are involved at all in the Seattle writing community, you have no doubt heard by now about the op-ed former Hugo House Writer-in-Residence and novelist Ryan Boudinot wrote for the local...
Winter of No Winter & Seattle’s Water (Hillman City Haibun 10)
It's over now, but Winter 2014/2015 in Seattle was not much of a winter. Many people around here were planting their gardens over a month ago and I suspect that was very wise. Many plants have been...
Wild Roof Journal Interview
I was fortunate to have been interviewed by the kind folks at Wild Roof Journal, a periodical which takes its name from a William Blake poem. We discussed the Poetry Postcard Fest, spontaneous...
Holly J. Hughes Interview
Holly Hughes is the author of Hold Fast, Sailing by Ravens, coauthor of The Pen and The Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World, and editor of the award-winning anthology, Beyond Forgetting: Poetry...
Mammal Grafting
I am going to post this today though I am going to release it as a "page" or doc in Week Two of my current workshops series A Sequence of Energies. There is still room in this workshop, Sunday...
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.