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
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,...
1st Crop of 2013 American Sentences
One function of my practice of writing a daily American Sentence is as a journal. I will go back to these not for the literary merit, but to remind myself of life's little trials and twists. Having...
Pirates of Cascadia
There is something about the San Juan Islands that lets a Midwest boy understand he is in Cascadia. When the view out your hostel window is this: you know you're not in corn country. And of course...
Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo
I got up early today and had some time to think (& write a poem) after doing my morning routine of journaling &c. (Someone in the household had coffee too late the night before and was up...
Soundcloud Interview Clips
How does one communicate the essence of three decades of conducting interviews? I have had to do that, and quick, as a grant deadline is approaching and I save the worst of the grant writing process...
The Next Big Thing (Self-Interview)
I was tagged by C.E. Putnam for this project, the Next Big Thing self-interview. I tagged 6 other writers whose work I admire and will post links to their answers once they send them to me. The...
Ghost Tantras (Ceremonies to Change The Nature of Reality)
It was early in 2012 that I finally acted on my interest in sound poetry. I had heard Dada sound poems, Jerome Rothenberg's recitation of the sound poetry of Hugo Ball, the Canadian group the Four...
Celebrating Ian Boyden (80. Bear Dream Bird Dream)
When Sam Hamill read at Spring Street Center back in November 2012 to celebrate and display his collaborations with the painter, book maker and artist Ian Boyden (see this link) Ian gave me a copy...
Happy 87th Michael McClure
I loved hearing Michael McClure and Allen Ginsberg at Naropa in 1976. See:...
Red Pine (Bill Porter) Interview
I had the good fortune to visit Bill Porter, the translator of ancient Chinese poetry and sacred texts, and interview him at his Port Townsend home on August 28, 2019. His latest books at the time...
Notes on The Undercommons
Nate Mackey tipped me off a few years ago to the work of Fred Moten and few months ago I came across a New Yorker article about a book Moten co-wrote with Stefano Harney entitled: The Undercommons:...
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.