Background: EcoRegions of Cascadia, Copyright © 2022 David McCloskey, Cascadia Institute; available from Feathered Star Productions.
Poetics as Cosmology Cascadian Zen VII Baskets: Four – Borders Without Binaries & Five – Wilson’s Bowl
A five week online (Zoom) workshop best suited for continuing participants and more experienced poets (open to open form) in workshops facilitated by Cascadia Poetics Lab and Poetry Postcard Fest Co-Founder Paul E Nelson. Participate in reading and discussion of foundational essays, interviews, listening and other assignments, as well as spontaneous poetry composition exercises, part of a series of courses to happen before the next postcard season. In Spring 2025, we’ll explore passages from Cascadian Zen Vol II – Baskets Four & Five, and related texts and assignments. How can one’s poetics be a cosmology and how can one maintain some experience of the Poetry Postcard Fest, & allow one’s life as a creative participant in the world to rise in one’s personal hierarchy of duties/activities? How is the projective poem an antidote to Silicon Valley attention fracking? $250 for each five week session per person, scholarships are available. Canadians may pay in CAD. Thursdays, 2-5pm PDT (April 3, 10, 17, 24, & May 1) by invitation only. Preference given to participants who wish to commit to both five-week sessions in the 2025 season.
April 3, 10, 17, & 24
May 1
Link to purchase Cascadian Zen Volume 2
Also, this essay on Investigative Poetry will be essential. Please read it before the course begins and come with questions or comments.
by invitation only. Zoom link: (to be announced)
Course Materials Week One
(Thursday, April 3, 2025, 3-5 pm PDT)
READ: Cascadian Zen Volume II, Basket Four (Pages 46 to 67)
LISTEN or WATCH: Anne Tardos Interview
WATCH: Good Enough Ancestor Trailer (The whole movie is only 22:00)
WRITE: Fucking Poetry Exercise or
WRITE a poem about the Good Enough Ancestor movie, using the Investigative Poetry method. The Kyger/Blavatsky chapbook is one example. This handout goes into that, with links. You can use any newspaper article or book. Here’s an article on Cate Blanchett’s hatred of leaf blowers, for example. Here’s one on a Canadian trapped by the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Course Materials Week Two
(Thursday, April 10, 2025, 2-5 pm PDT)
Read: Cascadian Zen Volume II (pp 67-91)
Watch: Fred Wah at CPF8 (Cue in to 42:48. Audio quality so-so.)
Read: Reportorial Poetics Blog Post Not Essay by (Brenda Hillman)
Listen: Malletismo
Write: Reportorial Poetics, Tariff Poetics, ICE Poetics, Gaza Poetics
Course Materials Week Three
(Thursday, April 17, 2025, 2-5 pm PDT)
Read: Cascadian Zen Volume II (pp 92-102)
READ: MAGA’s Underground Railroad
READ: AGAINST FORGETTING or WATCH IT HERE
READ: (or Listen): Telling The Bees
WATCH:
WRITE: Use the Reportorial Poetics or Kyger/Blavatsky method to create a poem based on the MAGA Underground Railroad DEI story or Telling the Bees, or any number of US students who’ve had their visa’s revoked, or READ this webpage with bee poems (you might prefer the Emily Dickinson bee poems the best) and write 1-7 “Bee Sevens.” These are 7 line poems with 7 words in each line. Maybe their relationship to bees is tangential. That’s ok. Get some honey in there, or plants around you now currently abloom and see where the 7s take you.
Course Materials Week Four
(Thursday, April 24, 2025, 2-5 pm PDT)
Read: Cascadian Zen Volume II (pp 103-123)
WATCH: https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/2025/03/wilsons-bowl-video/
READ/WRITE: Found Duende, Erasing Duende, Duende Phrase Acrostic
Course Materials Week Five
(Thursday, May 1, 2025, 2-5 pm PDT)
Read: Cascadian Zen Volume II (pp 124-148)
Read: Against Forgetting Complete Intro
WATCH: Waterfall Zen (extra credit if you do this.)
Write: Issei Zen/Cascadian Zen/Yourplace Zen
Register: https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/poetrypostcards/
Take your spontaneous writing practice to a new level by participating in the 19th Poetry Postcard Fest. Finish on September 1, 2025 with a daysong. Here are a few daysong ideas: Anno Uno Die aut septem, Pre-Labor Day Daysong: The Poet’s Subject is Time,