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
Hold The House Sparrow (translation)
The haibun I wrote for Maleea Acker (84. Hold The House Sparrow) has been translated into Chinese. I got this yesterday from Denis Mair: Hello Paul, Zhang Yuan, who is studying for a PhD in...
David Abel Tether, Float, Spare Room, 13 Hats
For years I was on the email list of Portland poet David Abel. The range of events promoted on that list went from experimental poetry readings to workshops, rare book exhibits to raga singing...
Chang’an Poetry Festival Hall of Fame
My 2011 trip to China continues to pay dividends. I'll explain in a moment. I was invited to China for the 2011 Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival and traveled there with my wife Meredith...
Nate Mackey, Amerarcana
When I proposed to Nate Mackey that we do an interview on Nod House, which was and still is his latest book of poems, he asked me if I had a venue in mind for its publication. No, I said, but he did...
84. Hold The House Sparrow (For Maleea Acker)
During my recent stay in Victoria, I was the guest of Maleea Acker for a night. She was one of the Canadian poets who came down to read at our first Cascadia Poetry Festival and has recently...
Force Field: 77 Women BC Poets
Soon after I made plans to go to Victoria, BC, for the launch of the Poems from Planet Earth anthology (see this post), I found out the launch of another anthology was happening the next day in...
Poems from Planet Earth
As mentioned in my last post (Walking Victoria) in addition to some lovely photo opportunities and the best matcha ever, I attended the launch for a new anthology of poems made up of past readers at...
Walking Victoria
I think it was attending the Victoria School of Writing (RIP) Summer School session for a week in July 2005 that made me aware of the Planet Earth Poetry series in Victoria, BC. That was the week I...
Haibun de la Serna
Finishing the 83rd poem in a series of 99 haibun on Monday morning, Meredith had overheard me recording the poem and informed me I was "almost finished" with the series I have been working on for...
Craft Talk Organic Poetry, 4.11.13 6P Ballard Library
I remember asking Michael McClure on the phone what it was like to start writing in Projective Verse. I think I had realized by that time I was writing in that manner, in which extreme concentration...
Make it True meets Medusario Review
Thank you Paul Constant, at the Seattle Review of Books, for the kind and (I think) perceptive review of an anthology I had a hand in bringing into the world. Make It True meets Medusario is indeed...
No Map, No Jud (For Judith Roche)
My elegy for Judith Roche has been published by the South Seattle Emerald: https://southseattleemerald.com/2019/11/24/sunday-stew-no-map-no-jud-for-judith-roche/ See also:...
Bill Mawhinney Bids Adieu to Northwind
I had the good fortune to read AT LEAST three times during Bill Mawhinney's tenure as producer of the monthly Northwind Poetry series in Port Townsend over the last 13 years. That he came out of the...
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.