Poetry Postcard Activations
Free Poetry & Community Events in Rainier Beach!
Life as Rehearsal for the Poem and Poetics as Cosmology 2026 Workshops
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. In Winter 2026, we’ll explore a short history of Cascadian poetry, touching on:
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- Theodore Roethke
- Fred Wah
- Daphne Marlatt
- George Bowering
- Mary Norbert Kõrte
- John Olson
- Phyllis Webb
- Stephen Collis
- Sharon Thesen
- Barry McKinnon
- Cedar Sigo
- George Stanley
- Robin Blaser
Life as Rehearsal for the Poem (LARFP)
- Sundays 3-5 PM PDT
- March 29, April 5, 12, 19, and 26, 2026
Poetics as Cosmology (PAC)
- Thursdays 3-5 PM PDT
- March 26, April 2, 9, 16, and 23, 2026
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
Postcarding & Daysinging (A Workshop)
Today, May 4, 2026, marks the last month of Earlybird Registration for the 20th Poetry Postcard Fest. The suggested donation will go up to $25 after...
Zhang Er on First Mountain
Sam Hamill wrote in his final book blurb: “Zhang Er brings us startling 'burial ground poems' from Chinese that are striking in their perspective...
Interview with Postcard Poet Laura Gamache
Part of the Cascadia 2050 mission is: to inspire artists and poets of the next generation to consider bioregionalism and intuitive poetic approach...
Writing Activism from Within a Texas Prison (By Katie Sarah Zale)
Kwaneta Harris is an incarcerated journalist in a Texas prison for women in Gatesville, where women on death row are also housed. Recently named a...
Somos Ajolotes Launch at Seattle U May 18
CPL Board member Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs is the editor of a new bilingual poetry anthology, Somos Ajolotes or We're All Axolotles. That all...
Aldon Nielsen on Choruses for Gil Scott-Heron
Aldon Lynn Nielsen says the time is right to say it straight, Gil Scott-Heron should be recognized as an important writer. As the George and Barbara...
20th annual Poetry Postcard Fest Special Project
Hello Postcarders, Bioregionalists, Poets, et.al, I am writing you today on behalf of Cascadia 2050 to invite you to participate in a special...
CJ Prince Has Passed
Longtime Bellingham, WA postcard poet CJ Prince has lost her battle with cancer. The news went out on her Facebook page via her Grandchild and Denny...
Postcards at Kubota Garden
The Cascadia 2050 crew will continue the series of springtime Poetry Postcard Activations Saturday, April 18, from 11a - 1p at Kubota Garden, a...
Two versions of what will be basically the same workshop to discuss the concept of the daysong, how to accomplish one and what it means to the poet who pulls it off.
Thursday, January 22, 2026 3-5 PM PDT
Monday, January 26, 2026 3-5 PM PDT
Workshop Cost: Free, with optional donation of $20-$100.00 (On Zoom)
Daysong Workshops 2026
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
Postcarding & Daysinging (A Workshop)
Today, May 4, 2026, marks the last month of Earlybird Registration for the 20th Poetry Postcard Fest. The suggested donation will go up to $25 after...
Zhang Er on First Mountain
Sam Hamill wrote in his final book blurb: “Zhang Er brings us startling 'burial ground poems' from Chinese that are striking in their perspective...
Interview with Postcard Poet Laura Gamache
Part of the Cascadia 2050 mission is: to inspire artists and poets of the next generation to consider bioregionalism and intuitive poetic approach...
Poetry Postcard Fest 2026
Early Bird Registration
The Poetry Postcard Fest is an annual 56-day experiment in spontaneity and community building. This literarary event is a self-guided workshop in spontaneous composition where people sign up to send 31 original poems on postcards to folks on a participation list before the end of August. The fest was initiated in 2007 by poets Paul E. Nelson and Lana Ayers, and has grown to include poets participating worldwide. Registration opens annually on September 1.
Zhang Er on First Mountain
Sam Hamill wrote in his final book blurb: “Zhang Er brings us startling ‘burial ground poems’ from Chinese that are striking in their perspective and elegant in style and presentation. They represent a poetic sensibility that is unique and often profound, and I read them with great surprise and gratitude.”
Zhang Er, a poet and opera librettist from Beijing, is the author of many books of poetry in Chinese, 2017’s Closest to You, also Verses on Bird and So Translating Rivers and Cities. She has co-edited Another Kind of Nation: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry and her opera libretti in English include Moon in the Mirror and Fiery Jade: Cai Yan. In this April 2019 interview she discussed her book First Mountain (Zephyr Press), co-translated from her original Chinese with Joseph Donahue.
To hear the original audio of this interview, click here.
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.
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:13 — 81.3MB)
thinkingwith: writing strategies for reconnecting to earth
Our current media landscape seems hooked on a doom loop, an apocalyptic dream of human self-annihilation from collapsing nation states and anarchy to climate change to AI terminators, to genocidal warmongering. In order to avoid going down with that ship, we, as humans, are going to need to flip the script, to learn to think differently.
Click this link for more information about the workshop Thinkingwith: Writing Strategies for Reconnecting to Earth.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
February 15, 22, March 1, 8, and 15, 2026
thinkingwith: writing strategies for reconnecting to earth
Our current media landscape seems hooked on a doom loop, an apocalyptic dream of human self-annihilation from collapsing nation states and anarchy to climate change to AI terminators, to genocidal warmongering. In order to avoid going down with that ship, we, as humans, are going to need to flip the script, to learn to think differently.
Click this link for more information about the workshop Thinkingwith: Writing Strategies for Reconnecting to Earth.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
February 15, 22, March 1, 8, and 15, 2026
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We recognize that our home office is on the ancestral homeland of the Duwamish, Muckleshoot and other Coastal Salish tribes. Our dedication to bioregionalism is to co-exist on this land in the sacred manner as practiced by the traditional ways of these indigenous people.
Statement on Ahimsa by Board Member Jason Wirth
January 20, 2021
The (Poetry Postcard Fest) and the Cascadia Poetry Festival (are) connected… When you’re writing poetry… part of poetry is the craft… rules (to be understood) in a variety of contexts… (Craft is…) a necessary but not sufficient condition. You’re also… experiencing your mind, at a very deep level. And that mind as you experience it more deeply, is not in a vacuum… It’s now and here… rooted in the socio-economic and ecological conditions that make it possible. And participating in… the spiritual exercise of these postcards, is already entering into… a deep bioregional awakening and conversion. In a way we’re trying for something like a spiritual revolution, and that poetry is not just an interesting thing that you can do, if you like. It’s a fundamental exercise of being here in a less harmful way… it’s a deep ahimsa, a deep practice of non-harming and cultivation. And so, it’s all connected… And… our ambition is… trying to have a mind that would be capable, of being in this place in a better way… We’re going to live or die, by how we come down on these issues going forward.