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 Four Hoarse Men Saturday 12.14.13
From Anne Sweet: Hey Friends – It’s almost time for the big Equinox Studios art bash and block party! You are all invited to 6555 5th Ave. S. in West Georgetown on Saturday, December 14, 6-10pm ......
David McCloskey on Cascadia Parts 4-6
David McCloskey is a retired Professor of Sociology at Seattle University, and founder of the Cascadia Institute. I got the chance to interview him on October 30, 2013, at his home in Eugene,...
98. Why Redwings Sing
When asked how my residency at the Lake, the final home of legendary artist Morris Graves, my stock response has been "stunning and miraculous." I was awarded a residency almost a year ago by the...
David McCloskey on Cascadia Part 3
David McCloskey is a retired Professor of Sociology at Seattle University, and founder of the Cascadia Institute. I got the chance to interview him on October 30, 2013, at his home in Eugene,...
An Update to Writing or Rewriting
The update of an essay, (Writing or Re-Writing: A Primer on Prevision) really a series of notes, on some of the history of what Robin Blaser called "The Practice of Outside" centers around Brenda...
American Sentences August – November 2013
I have finally gotten a chance to harvest American Sentences from the last few months. As you may know, this is my 13th year of writing one every day and I've about 37 left for 2013. Found poems,...
David McCloskey on Cascadia, Part 2
David McCloskey is a retired Professor of Sociology at Seattle University, and founder of the Cascadia Institute. I got the chance to interview him on October 30, 2013, at his home in Eugene,...
Wanda Coleman, Dead at 67
I was the emcee one year at the Bumbershoot Literary Arts stage, 1999, back when that stage and the small press fair was the unofficial kickoff of the Seattle literary arts season. After a short...
David McCloskey on Cascadia
After hearing about the concept in bioregionalism (in about 1991 or so) and getting interested in an organizing effort that went deeper than politics, I created the Cascadia Poetry Festival in March...
Morris Graves Residency Report
I am just back from the best and most intensive writing retreat/ residency of my life and a quick trip to L.A. to visit José Kozer (& his wife Guada), see Amalio Madueño, meet Pablo Baler (&...
Buckminster Fuller
As a fan of the Black Mountain School of poetry, which was inspired by the revolutionary poetics of Charles Olson, the last rector of the famed outside educational institution in North Carolina in...
Because of Poetry I Have a Really Big House (Review)
A very astute review of a new book by a poet that MANY poets love to hate has been published. It's a book by Kent Johnson called Because of Poetry, I Have a Really Big House. The reviewer is Norman...
A Forest of Names (Ian Boyden)
My good friend Ian Boyden is a brilliant artist who has a new book of poems to be released next month by Wesleyan University Press. FYI: A Forest of Names: 108 Meditations by Ian Boyden...
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.
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