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.
After the Japanese 77-79
In this part of the series I started doing alternate takes. Not unlike bebop, writing in serial form is kind of like that stabbing at something you can't quite nail, but hopefully the striving is...
Postcard Update, Independence
First an update on the 2015 August Poetry Postcard Fest. We have 70 signups in the first 44 hours and the first two groups are complete. Lists have been sent out to groups 1 & 2. Participants in the...
August POetry POstcard Fest (Year 9) Call
The August Poetry Postcard Fest was initiated in 2007 by poets Paul Nelson and Lana Ayers. 2015 marks year nine and this is your official call. Directions to participate in the fest are linked...
Cascadia Anthology Audio
A reading from the first ever anthology of Cascadia Poetry was held Wednesday, June 24, 2015, at Milepost 5 in Portland. Details and audio here:...
BC Poet Jamie Reid Dead at 74
Waiting in the garden on a hot day for a friend and our bike ride, I perused Facebook only to see the news that Vancouver poet Jamie Reid had died at age 74. The news came via his wife Carol on his...
Interview with Eric Tingstad
For over 30 years Seattle guitarist Eric Tingstad has been recording and performing in Cascadia and around the world. Often with his collaborator Nancy Rumbel, with whom he was awarded a Grammy in...
After The Japanese 73-76
The latest in this series of 100 poems with references to: https://depts.washington.edu/uwbg/gardens/wpa/witt_winter.shtml https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370...
Sharon Thesen on Re-Wilding (Re-Worlding)
In the year 2001, after the tragic events of that September, and only about five years under my belt as a curator/facilitator of events featuring visiting poets, I had the good fortune to organize a...
SW Road Trip Haibun: Holiday in Quemado
The road has its own demands. Make plans, the road reserves the right to laugh. Hail. Close. Be patrolled with USAmerican religious trooper zeal and yet you go 80+ under sun & big sky. You can't...
Armenian Genocide
I was delighted to hear that President Biden announced that for the first time in history the United States recognizes the Armenian genocide perpetrated by Turkey in 1915. See:...
The Wig Maker
How the life story of a woman abandoned by her mother and abused as a child by her father was turned into experimental lyric poetry is the premise of a book by Janet Gallant as told to Sharon Thesen...
Earth Day @ NorthWind
Has a nice ring to it, eh? Rob Lewis is one of three poets reading 7pm PDT Thursday, April 22, 2021 as part of the regular Northwind Reading Series. From the Northwind folk: To celebrate Earth Day...
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.