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
Jeremy Pataky at U Books
It takes a special (or odd) person to live in Alaska, especially by choice and not by birth. The long winter nights would be one reason. I can imagine how all that darkness would be hard to take....
ATJ 57-60 Language & Lilacs
It is logical that it would be a matter of time before Ella would adopt some of my better habits. All too often we're reminded of the bad ones our children take from us. You can decide whether the...
Make It True (Poetry From Cascadia)
It is still kind of hard to believe that the second of the Cascadia poetry projects I envisioned a couple of years ago is just about to manifest. Make It True: Poetry From Cascadia will be released...
Pictures of Peter Culley
For Peter Culley (1958-2015)
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...
Michael Boughn on Jack Clarke
Michael Boughn is a brilliant poet who edited Robert Duncan's mythical H.D. Book, studied with Robin Blaser and co-edited the dangerous website Dispatches from the Poetry Wars, now archived via...
Hamish Todd “Interviews” Paul E Nelson
I met Hamish Todd the first time I went to Red Sky Poetry Theater. I used some language in a poem that was a little outside the regular open mic fare, but he got it and gave me a kind word. That was...
Ed Varney (A Lot of Nada)
It was Michael McClure in about 2004 who suggested I go beyond the U.S. when studying Open Form poetry. That led me to José Kozer (Cuban, though living in Hallandale Beach, FL) and poets in B.C....
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.