Cascadia Poetics LAB logo

PAUL E NELSON

Cascadia Poetry Festival 8 Paul E Nelson at the microphone

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.

Nate Mackey at UW Bothell

I went to hear Nate Mackey this evening (Wednesday, Sept 30) at the UW and I strongly encourage Puget Sound area literature fans to attend his reading and conversation Thursday, Oct 1 as part of the...

read more

511. Postcard Fragrance

This 2015 August Poetry Postcard Fest poem continues the “being as comedian” thread from the last poem, makes a reference to a direction in a prompt I saw online and alludes to some of the more out...

read more

EBSN Brussels

The 4th European Beat Studies Network is happening in Brussels 28-31 Oct and as reported before, I will be attending and presenting. My talk is: Buddhism, Hua-yen, Latihan and American Sentences...

read more

510. Divine Comedian

This poem was inspired by something said in a talk given by Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo, the man who founded the worldwide Subud spiritual community. I have been a member since 2004. The notion...

read more

509. Dream Anagrams

This postcard poem went overseas, so good to give it two months before posting here. I think in future years I may send to the folks overseas first so that there is time for them to receive the...

read more

Bowering/Stanley on Cascadia

I was pleasantly surprised to be tagged on Facebook in a post that promoted a podcast by New Star Books of Vancouver. The podcast featured two elders of the Cascadia poetry community, Vancouver...

read more

508. Crater Glacier (Power Animal)

The largest category of (August Poetry Postcard Fest) cards I send out, in terms of the image, feature Coastal Salish art. I think this is one of the world’s most potent artistic traditions, on a...

read more

After The Japanese (End)

I had no idea when I started this series that it would end with me writing poems about my Father's death on Mother's Day 2014. And so it goes. I am grateful to have a process that allows me to, yes,...

read more
McClure Memorial

McClure Memorial

Amy McClure sends this note: Dear Friends and Family, Looking forward to seeing you! Details are on the Eventbrite link below. Please register if you’ll attend:...

read more
Gigs, Interviews & Postcards

Gigs, Interviews & Postcards

So much happening. The new abnormal is near! Anarchist librarian poet Greg Bem has organized yet another of his creative, interdisciplinary events and this one is IN PUBLIC! He is apparently not...

read more

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.

David McCloskey

In Honor of David McCloskey "The Father of Cascadia"

by Paul E Nelson

Deborah Poe

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.

Deborah Poe on "flagging the apocalypse pageantry"

by Paul E Nelson