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PAUL E NELSON

Poetics

While the poetics of the Cascadia Poetics Lab have not been systematized, one can get the gist of it with the following essays. This page is a work in progress. There has long been a tradition of “received” poetry in English (& other languages) but critical to our poetics is the notion of: “getting rid of the lyrical interference of the individual as ego” as Charles Olson noted in Projective Verse. That Olson a few lines later in the essay alludes to humility is critical. Umeek, E. Richard Atleo of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribe also notes that humility is a necessary requirement in his people’s knowledge acquisition method known as Oosumich. CPL poetics values writing as vision quest and the Day Song exercise is one of the most effective approaches we have encountered to achieve that goal.

Workshop participants may find it helpful to be familiar with these essays:

A FEW DONT’S BY AN IMAGISTE (Ezra Pound)

THE POEM AS A FIELD OF ACTIONWCW circa UW 1948

SOME NOTES ON ORGANIC FORM by Denise Levertov

PROJECTIVE VERSE by Charles Olson

HUMAN UNIVERSE by Charles Olson

PERSONISM: A Manifesto by Frank O’Hara

INTRODUCTION TO THE WEDGE by William Carlos Williams

THE OBFUSCATED POEM by Bernadette Mayer

THE PRACTICE OF OUTSIDE by Robin Blaser. (Also see my piece: Some Notes on the Practice of Outside.)

ON THELONIOUSISM by Wanda Coleman

The Other’s Voice: Cultural Imperialism and Poetic Impersonality in Gary Snyder’s Mountains and Rivers Without End.

Creativity and the Fully Developed Bard by Ed Sanders

Investigative Poetry by Ed Sanders

CREATIVE WRITING LIFE tips by Anne Waldman

OPPOSITIONAL POETICS by Anne Waldman

Writing or ReWriting by Paul E Nelson

Post Coyote Poetry by Andrew Schelling

EcoPoetics Minifesto- A Draft for Angie – Brenda Hillman

Charles Olson and the Counterculture of the 1950s & 1960s (by Craig Stormont)

Mind Writing Slogans collected by Allen Ginsberg

Introduction to SPLAY ANTHEM by Nate Mackey