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.
Lightning Round (Short Poem Fiesta)
I am not sure when we started it, or how it started, but a tradition from the old SPLAB during the first few iterations of the Ginsberg Marathon featured a Lightning Round. We'd gather in a circle...
Notes on Anuncio’s Last Love Song (Nate Mackey)
Notes on Anuncio’s Last Love Song by Nate Mackey When we last left Nate Mackey’s poetry with the book Nod House, our protagonist and his band were seeing brute sun outside the/ nod / house door....
86. Paulownia Tomentosa
I have heard much over the years about Jack Remick's writing group. That he's the feature of our 13th Ginsberg Marathon made me want to see how he works. A very informal gathering at 2P Tuesdays and...
Kwame Dawes, Youth Speaks Seattle
Last night (Friday, May 3, 2013) I attended the Kwame Dawes reading at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. I was invited twice to the event, the second invite coming a few days before and though I was not...
Latest American Sentences
I was looking at the stats for this website yesterday and stunned to find over 5,000 hits on American Sentences, by far the most popular thing here. Thank you for your interest. I write today to...
85. Soul’s Same Ol’ (Over n Over)
It doesn't take much exposure to the work of Nate Mackey to propel me into my own poetic orbit. Perhaps as a gesture for the successful publication of an interview we did last summer, he sent a copy...
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...
Interview with Miriam Nichols on Mechanic of Splendor
Of the post-war North American poets that wrote from a stance of spontaneity, there are few that spring to mind immediately, Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Denise Levertov, Michael...
The MUD Proposal proposal
After writing about being accepted by The Mud Proposal (see: https://paulenelson.com/2020/01/01/the-mud-proposal/) I came across my cover letter for the Mud Proposal: Dear Editors, I am in year...
MLA Seattle Off-Site Reading
I am delighted to be part of a giant mosaic of poets reading on Friday, January 10, 2020, in the MLA Off-Site Reading. The venue is the Town Hall Forum, 1119 8th Avenue, Seattle, WA, 7:30 to 11pm,...
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.