Paul E Nelson presenting at Cascadia Poetry Festival 8, photo by Leszek Chudzinski
Paul Nelson’s ongoing honing of the Day Song poetry event has produced some of the most lively and consequential verse of our time. How else write about the calamities and demands and mental/emotional/political consequences of the materialist apocalypse upon us, than an ongoing poesis of awareness and participation the anti-form the Day Song provides? Truly a praxis of proprioception and of Olson’s demand to “keep it moving…
– Sharon Thesen, Cascadian Poet/Scholar from B.C.
Hailey, ID, Pound House, Bowe Bergdahl
Mer and I recently returned from a mammoth road trip from Seattle to Minneapolis, Chicago, DC, Pittsburgh, Decatur, Indiana, Chicago, Minneapolis, Sutherland, Nebraska, Denver, Laramie and Hailey,...
Clyfford Still Museum
As part of our marathon road trip, Mer, Ella and I stopped in Denver specifically for the purpose of visiting the Clyfford Still Museum. One of the most unique painters in USAmerican history, Still...
Loose in Cascadia
I have left a couple of browser tabs open on my mac for a couple of weeks now because of their relevance to my ongoing cultural investigation of Cascadia. Both have to do with a study by two...
American Sentences for Pop
I read Nine Sonnets for Pop and a few of these 17 syllable poems at my Dad's grave today as his remains were interred at the family burial plot in Elmhurst, Illinois. My siblings shared some stories...
Pop at Aunt Barbara’s Coffin
My Aunt Barbara Rose O'Connell died on Super Bowl Sunday, 2007, and there were ceremonies in Glendora, California, where she lived most of her life and outside of Chicago, where she was born and...
George Stanley on Innovation
One of the most powerful events of the recent Cascadia Poetry Festival (Cascadia II) was the panel: Cascadian Poetics: Innovations from Here. (Video of the panel here.) Nadine Maestas facilitated...
Paul E. Nelson Sr. Dead at 85
Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on December 27, 1928, Paul Everett Nelson Senior died today in his sleep in his home on the Northwest Side of Chicago at the age of 85. He is survived by his wife,...
Cascadia Poets Get a Taste of the Latihan
I've been asked by the Subud community to write about the 2nd Cascadia Poetry Festival, which happened May 1-4, 2014 at two locations: Seattle University and Spring Street Center. Spring Street...
Happy 71st Sam Hamill
I wrote a more extensive birthday post for Sam Hamill's 70th last year (see this) and this year I took a page (or three) out of the Book of Rexroth for Sam. You can see more of my engagements with...
Some Notes on the Minuses
I was having a discussion with an elder poet about a poetry experience that I had recently which left me feeling outside. The funny thing is that's where I want to be. I can't do anything but...
Song Cousins
My regular open mic (sorry Peter, but "mic" is short for microphone and "Mike" is short for Michael) EasySpeak Seattle has been on hiatus since February AND WE BOOKED SO MANY COOL FEATURED POETS and...
Benefit Reading for the Community of Writers at Sq— Valley
I am delighted this week to participate in the Community of Writers at Sq--- (virtual) Valley. Virtual because of the ongoing (& well-founded) concern regarding the novel Coronavirus. There are...
In Honor of David McCloskey “The Father of Cascadia”
David McCloskey passed away on July 3. In honor of his lifetime of work to create and spread a culture that was deeply connected to the Cascadian bioregion, Cascadian Prophets, which owes more than just its name to his work, we want to share this interview from October, 2013. Find it transcribed on our website.
To listen to the original audio of this interview, click here.
Check out more of what the Lab does here, and listen to more current and archival podcasts on Spotify or on our website.
In Honor of David McCloskey "The Father of Cascadia"
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.
Check out more of what the Lab does here, and listen to more current and archival podcasts on Spotify or on our website.
To get original poetry right in your mailbox this summer, check out the Poetry Postcard Fest.