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
DaySong Miracle (Past 62)
From Greg Bem in Spokane, WA: Greetings from Spokane! I am pleased to announce the third release from Carbonation Press: Paul E. Nelson's DaySong Miracle (Past 62). This small book is available...
Interview with Bill Porter on Dancing with the Dead
Here is the video version of my March 25, 2024 interview with Bill Porter on "Dancing With the Dead: Red Pine and the Art of Translation." We talked about his life, the movie and the film which...
Zoom Interview with Nicholas Gulig on Lorine Niedecker
Imagine growing up a poet in a state like Wisconsin and having to travel to Colorado to learn about the work of Lorine Niedecker, and furthermore to have one’s own consciousness changed by...
Typewriter Poems on Request at SAM’s Remix (Crush)
With my friend, the poet Samar Abulhassan, I'll be typing spontaneous poems on demand for people attending the Seattle Art Museum's popular Remix, Friday, March 29, 2024 from 7-10pm. Really, this...
Lesley University COS 24 Talk
Lesley University COS 24 happens March 29, 2024 and I will give a talk on my graduate education and what has developed since then. COS stands for Community of Scholars and I am proud to be one,...
Red Pine Documentary
The last time we reported on Bill Porter (aka: Red Pine) we had traveled to his Port Townsend home for an interview. See: https://paulenelson.com/2019/10/14/red-pine-bill-porter-interview/ Now he's...
Poetics as Cosmology at Holden Village
Thanks to poetry hermano Raul Sanchez, I'll be facilitating my Poetics as Cosmology this summer in the North Cascades and you are welcome to hang out. The place is Holden Village. "Over the course...
Tessa Hulls Interview (Feeding Ghosts)
Tessa Hulls and I met when she donated a poster for the 2013 edition of the Allen Ginsberg Open Mic Poetry marathon. On February 20, 2024 I caught up with her on Zoom to discuss her first book, a...
Article on Cascadia by a Writer in London
The notion of bioregionalism and Cascadia has spread at least to London. I was interviewed on the subject of Cascadia by Gus Mitchell, a London-based free lance writer and was delighted to see my...
Pie & Poetry @ C&P on Valentine’s Day
Poetry Bridge is celebrating 14 years of community mic readings at C&P Coffee Company in West Seattle on Wednesday, February 14, 2024. 6:30 it's time for pie and signups. 7pm a reading that will...
Winter in America (Again Monday, July 21 via Zoom
From Bill O'Daly: Dear Friends and Family, A reading based on Winter in America (Again, an anthology developed in response to the 2024 election by poets Katie Sarah Zale, president of the Arizona...
Resistance as Writing
How can one write poetry about current political events without resorting to invective or rhetoric? Why is this important? Poetry is a use of language that is capable of a kind of depth of being...
Eagle Harbor Book Company Canceled
Dear Faithful Blog Reader! The Winter in America (Again reading scheduled for tonight, Friday, July 11, 2025, has been canceled. The tour's last stop is tomorrow, Saturday, July 12, at 2pm at the...
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.