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.
Cascadia and Feminism
The subject of Feminism has been coming up in recent weeks. My interview with Daphne Marlatt touched on it, as she has organized Feminist conferences thirty years ago and identifies as a Feminist....
Early 2014 American Sentences
The first harvest of the new year, my fourteenth with a daily practice of writing one 17 syllable poem. More on American Sentences elsewhere on this site, but for now, a few from 2014: 1.3.14 - A...
Limits of the Heroic
An interesting confluence of events in my life the last couple of weeks which involve a bit of poetics, a bit from one of my recent interviews, Facebook discussions and Feminism. And involves...
Getting to Know Cascadian Poets & Poetics
It was after I finished my M.A. from Lesley University, a course of study I organized with the help of a few select advisors that one of my most close readers, Chuck Pirtle, suggested what I was...
Daphne Marlatt Interview (Liquidities)
I did my first interviews very early in my radio career, but started to gain some skill at preparing and conducting interviews about 1990, when I became News and Community Affairs Director at...
SPLAB @ 20 (A daughter’s view)
We celebrated 20 years of SPLAB last Saturday at the Spring Street Center in Seattle, which is also the Seattle Subud House, my spiritual home. I was pleasantly surprised by the good turnout and...
Allergic to Cascadia Cats
You may have seen that the lineup for the 2nd Cascadia Poetry Festival has been released. I am pretty excited about it and we need 14 more sponsors at the $500 level, or 7 more at the $1,000 level,...
SPLAB Turns 20
Though the official date was December 13, 2013 that the organization I created turned 20, we celebrate Saturday at Spring Street Center. Details below. It is hard to believe how quickly 20 years can...
Jose Kozer Interview (N.13.13 in L.A., Part 2)
Today I'm posting the rest of the audio of an interview with legendary Cuban-American poet José Kozer, conducted by Cal State U at L.A. Ph.D. student Mike Sonksen. (Hear the first four parts of 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....
Zoom McClure Tribute
One of my poetry heroes died May 4. I met and interviewed Michael McClure in 1995 when he was visiting Seattle to promote the book Three Poems with the new long poem Dolphin Skull as the first of...
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.