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.
Model Session
It has been about 15 years since I last sat for painters, one of them Joan Treat, who created this painting which I bought immediately: But the session last week at the studio of Amanda Teicher was...
Two Gigs This Week
I am not a fan of public readings in Seattle summer and ESPECIALLY during August, the month of POSTCARDS but here are two, one Friday night (Aug 28) and one Saturday night (Aug 29) in Seattle: An...
G.P. Lainsbury’s Cascadia Transit
Greg (GP) Lainsbury, Professor in the English department at Northern Lights College, Fort St. John, BC is another of the poets with work published in Make It True: Poetry From Cascadia. On July 29,...
After the Japanese 87-90 (Mountains, Mingus & Madrones)
Taking the ferry in the Salish Sea, being on any kind of boat in the waters of Cascadia gives you quite a different perspective and an April 2014 ferry ride provided a perspective that inspired the...
5 Step Plan for Seattle Progressives
Yes the 8.8.15 interrupt Bernie stunt "Blew up the Internet." Of course that does not make it good, that means someone got their picture in the paper and in news stories for a cycle or two. Never...
506. Curved Projections
The second poem from the 2015 August Poetry Postcard Fest, this one is really the first, since #505 was a dry run and #506 starts the poems that all lead off with a quote from Joanne Kyger. And I am...
Whalen, Zen and Postcards
Thanks to Sam Hamill's suggestion, I have been reading Crowded by Beauty a biography of Beat Poet and Zen Monk Philip Whalen by David Schneider. Am loving it and finding it a great companion and...
Zen, BLM Shuts Down Bernie
I was at the Bernie Sanders rally yesterday (8.8.15) in downtown Seattle's Westlake Center where he was interrupted a second time by protestors from #BlackLivesMatter. And I get why it is...
After The Japanese 83-86
"The poem beats you down the street*" when the poem is written as an act of discovery. It's part of the joy of an open form. The prophecy in this batch of poems from the series I've been posting for...
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...
Jeanne Heuving on Nate Mackey Destination Out
Jeanne Heuving is the editor of a fascinating new book of scholarship on one of the most important poets of our time, Nate Mackey. The book is entitled Nathaniel Mackey, Destination Out: Essays on...
David Stephen Calonne: Diane di Prima Visionary Poetics & The Hidden Religions
Interview with David Stephen Calonne, author of Diane di Prima: Visionary Poetics and the Hidden Traditions, Recorded via Zoom, Sunday, June 6, 2021, 1:30pm Diane di Prima, who died in October 2020:...
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.
In Honor of David McCloskey "The Father of Cascadia"
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.