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
American Exceptionalism and Canadian Reality
If there were any doubt that the notion of American Exceptionalism were a joke, or a hoax, or a myth easily busted, the current shutdown of the federal government by a group of congressmen...
468. Matt Trease, Seattle, WA, Nerve Endings and Rainstorms
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467. Linda Clifton, Seattle, WA – Expanding the Substance of Experience
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92. Galactic Circuit (for Will Alexander)
Writing Projects
Am preparing for my first featured reading in a while, Tuesday night, October 1 at 7pm at the Duvall Visitors Center, 15619 Main Street, Duvall, WA. (See this site.) I am to read for 25-30 minutes...
466. Joe Chiveney, Olympia, WA – The Empty River
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465. T. Clear, Seattle, WA – Late August Rain Vigil
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464. Jami Proctor-Xu, San Ramon, CA – Baby Gate
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463. Linda Crosfield, Castlegar, BC – Hummingbird Plot.png
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462. Kenneth Greg Watson, Auburn, WA – Rapturous Vocalization
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Strange Fruit: Poems on the Death Penalty
I'm delighted to have work in a new anthology entitled: Strange Fruit: Poems on the Death Penalty. It was edited by Sarah Zale and Terry Persun and seeing that our shelter-in-place restrictions...
R.I.P. Michael McClure, 20-Oct-1932 – 4-May-2020
I will never forget meeting Michael McClure, interviewing him in 1995 at the old KZOK-FM studios on Queen Anne Hill, him taking me out for Vietnamese food saying lunch was "on Penguin" (his...
PEN America Emergency Writers Fund
Artists have to train themselves to not link their own self-esteem to outside validation. In THIS culture, the job is much harder because of what the composer Charles Wuorinen said to the New York...
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.