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
441. Savannah Featherstone, Victoria, BC – Not The Practice of Inside
(Click here for audio)
Tit Nun, Jilly Rizzo and American Sentences
Old pal Dick Rosetti, with whom I worked at KNDD (The End), asked me to sit in with his band Jilly Rizzo on September 14th at the Skylark Club, 3803 Delridge Way S.W. in West Seattle. They are...
Graham Isaac Interview Part 1
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’...
440. to Rhonda Ganz, Victoria, BC-The True Story of the Poets Chair
(Click here for audio)
439. Michael Hanner, Eugene, OR – Mr. Breeze
(Click here for Audio)
438. Carol Dorf, Berkeley, CA – Kiss the Morning Glory
(Click here for audio)
437. Mark Allen Jenkins, Dallas, TX – Edge of Decomposition
(Click here for audio)
436. Aaron Kokorowski, Seattle, WA – Frowning Moon
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Habib in Seattle, Part Deux
We left off with El Habib Louai's first sushi experience with Sam Hamill and his daughter Eron and I at Sakura in Burlington. (See this post.) Monday (8.12.13) Habib got to go thrift shopping with...
435. Mel Functioning, Singapore – Collars Up!
(Click here for audio. P.S. Mel Functioning? Really Mel?)
Lewis MacAdams Dead
This was in the L.A. Times tonight: Lewis MacAdams, a poet and crusader for restoring the concrete Los Angeles River to a more natural state and co-founder of one of the most influential...
Documenting Pandemic
Thanks to POPO participant Linda Clifton, I learned about an essay by George Saunders in The New Yorker: A key paragraph for me: Are you keeping records of the e-mails and texts you’re getting, the...
A Time Before Slaughter/Pig War: & Other Songs of Cascadia
When the box of books arrives at your house and for the first time you hold your new book in your hand, it is quite an experience. I remember moving to Seattle in 2009 and having the first box of my...
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.