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
The Future of Storytelling, Puebla, Mexico
This past August I had the good fortune to attend the 14th Subud World Congress in Puebla, Mexico, or the Congreso Mundial, as the locals called it. There are numerous stories I could tell about my...
After The Japanese 13-16
This latest installment of After The Japanese, poems written after the classic Japanese poetry anthology, is below. Inspirations coming, as usual, from a wide variety of sources such as the...
Last of the 2014 American Sentences
Tomorrow marks 14 years of a daily writing practice of American Sentences. I started January 1, 2001, and when I get mine done tomorrow I will have written AT LEAST 5,110. You can read more about...
Top Ten Posts of 2014
I did this last year, a post of the top ten posts/pages of the year. I excluded American Sentences and all individual pages associated with that daily practice and also Organic Poetry and individual...
After The Japanese 9-12
When one writes poetry from the practice of outside, you can go back and look at poems 10 months old and marvel at the consciousness there because in a way, it's not you. As drummer Hamid Drake told...
R.I.P. Ralph Maud (1928-2014)
On December 11, 2014, Cascadia lost one of its most important scholars when Ralph Maud died a couple of weeks short of his 86th birthday. He was three days older than my Dad who also died this year,...
Cuba Libre
I had just dropped off my daughter Ella Roque at her Spanish immersion pre-school and parked in front of my favorite juice bar when the top of the hour radio headlines broadcast that President Obama...
After the Japanese 5-8
My hiking partner and I had made it to the end of the Hoh River Trail, 17.5 miles, and had done a silence ritual, where each of us spent the day away from the other in the Olympic National Park. I'd...
Sam Hamill & Christopher Yohmei Blasdel N.1.14
On November 1, 2014, the home of my spiritual community was the site of an event that truly illustrates the mission of the cultural wing of said organization, working at the confluence of creativity...
Bioregionalism or Endless Garbage
There needs to be a new idea or a more fleshed out idea of what a human being is in reference to sharing the biosphere with other life. - Peter Berg This is part of what essentially is Peter Berg's...
Diane di Prima Solstice Poem
Thank you Leggy Bruck for this: And di Prima fans should know about this: Rename Page-Laguna Mini Park to Diane DiPrima Park Why is this important? PETITION to Rename Page-Laguna Park as “Diane di...
My Personal Universe Deck
What's good for the goose... It was about 20 years ago (2000?) when I first learned about Michael McClure's concept of a Personal Universe Deck and 8 years ago when I took some of my retreat time at...
12.9.2020 American Sentence
The end of 2020 (aside from spawning millions of "good riddance" celebrations) marks the completion of twenty years of daily practice of American Sentences. These (usually) 17 syllable poems, a form...
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.