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
Trevor Carolan – Reading BC and PNW Literature
Trev Carolan is the editor of Making Waves: Reading BC and Pacific Northwest Literature. Paul Nelson interviewed him July 15, 2011, at the Prophouse Cafe in Vancouver to talk about the book. Here is...
The Line Has Shattered (1963 Vancouver Poetry Conference)
Mer, Ella and I left Seattle Thursday morning for Vancouver for the premiere screening of a documentary on the 1963 Vancouver Poetry Conference, The Line Has Shattered. It was being screened at...
The History of the Decline of Wild Salmon
David Montgomery - The History of the Decline of Wild Salmon David Montgomery is a Professor of Geomorphology at the University of Washington and author of: King of Fish: The Thousand Year Run of...
Denis Mair on Huang Nubo (Luo Ying)
I have known Denis Mair from my earliest days attending Red Sky Poetry Theater at the Globe Cafe at 14th & Pine. This would have been as early as 1995. A tall, soft-spoken man, he would read his...
May 13 Nanaimo Workshop
I have been fortunate to be able to travel to much of Cascadia. Sometimes I get to share the fruit of my research on Organic Poetry. David Fraser of Wordstorm has invited me back to Diana Krall's...
Xi Chuan Notes on the Mosquito
After making a presentation in Xining, China in August, 2011, at the 3rd Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival, a Chinese poet came up to me, told he he enjoyed my presentation and asked if I...
Cascadia Poetry Festival Ad Board Meeting
To the Members of the Cascadia Advisory Board, We are scheduling a meeting on Sunday, March 31, 2013, at 4P at Spring Street Center, 1101 15th in Seattle. We'll give folks an update on developments...
The Meat Reason of the Last Beat
The Meat Reason of the Last Beat: McClure’s Latihan (Download as pdf) A man writhing on the floor with his eyes closed, perhaps groaning and twisting in sunlight that pours through a window,...
How to Not Get Lost Backpacking
The vision quests in our culture are usually unintentional. We have, by and large, rejected the ancient needs for rituals to mark rites of passage, but somewhere in the psyche, a human demands it to...
The State of Seattle Poetry (Online Panel)
Greg Bem and Amber Nelson have asked me to convene the first of many online panels on poetry they plan to produce starting March 24, 2013: Confirmed panelists: Daemond Arrindell. Poet, performer,...
#APPF13 Wrapup (What I Wrote)
It seems rather overwhelming to summarize my experience as a participant of the 13th August Poetry Postcard Fest which longtime participant Terry Holzman a few years ago nicknamed PoPo and an...
The Joy of Postcards (Aug 2019 Reviews)
I titled my APPF essay for Rattle "The Joy of Postcards" but even though I was likening this activity to the subject of a famous book from the 60s, I was not far off based on some feedback from some...
Deborah Poe Interview (June 30, 2019)
Deborah Poe is the author of the poetry collections keep (from Dusie Press), the last will be stone, too (Stockport Flats), Elements (Stockport Flats), and Our Parenthetical Ontology (CustomWords),...
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.