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
91. Berber City Poems (For El Habib Louai)
It is a month after El Habib Louai visited Seattle, postcards composed during his visit are appearing on my blog and I am reliving the moments through the poems as if they are happening again. Part...
456. L. Lisa Lawrence, Tacoma, WA – Shooting Hozomeen
(click here for audio)
Deconstructing For Kurt Cobain
I had a poem published in the anthology culled from featured readers at the Planet Earth Poetry reading series in Victoria. Yvonne Blomer, the series curator and co-editor of the Poems from Planet...
455. Heather Mydosh, Independence, KS – Kerouac & Moonrise
(click here for audio)
Reading to Seattle City Council
I have not made much of a big deal regarding my appearance today before the Seattle City Council's Words' Worth program, perhaps because it was going to happen in January and then a few days ago I...
Graham Isaac Interview, Parts 3-5
Graham Isaac is a writer living and working in Seattle, Washington. He holds an MA in Creative and Media Writing from the University of Wales, Swansea, where he co-founded The Crunch, South Wales’...
454. Phebe Davidson, Westminster, SC – Berber Works the Wood
(Click here for audio)
Postcard Poems as Peace Process
“There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community." ...
453. Bridget Nutting, Vancouver, WA – Put a Berber on it
(Click here for audio)
Upcoming Gigs, Events
It used to be that literary arts activity stopped in the summer in Seattle, but that has been changing the last couple of years. I remember fondly the annual (unofficial) post-summer literary...
The Undercommons Remembers Michael McClure
The Undercommons is a literary salon that was founded a few months ago, happened in person once a month a few times and has moved to Zoom for the time-being. We've studied Denise Levertov and The...
Rattle Magazine Interview
I'm delighted to have a poem and an interview in the latest Rattle Magazine. This interview is not one I conducted but one that was done with ME! And it was the best one anyone has ever done with...
BIPF Virtual Poetry Fest/Zoomuse
One of the big joys of poetry is to go to festivals, maybe have a chance to read, but certainly have a chance to be in the company of other living poets and talking shop, craft and opportunities....
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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To get original poetry right in your mailbox this summer, check out the Poetry Postcard Fest.