Reviews of CPF-Anacortes 2019

May 31, 2019
Splabman

CPF-Anacortes 2019 PosterSome reviews of the 6th Cascadia Poetry Festival are coming in and are being posted on the festival website here:

http://cascadiapoetryfestival.org/cpf-anacortes-2019-reviews/

The Cascadia Poetry Festival is absolutely unique, offering both attention to local conditions (both social and geograpical/ecological), and to general matters of aesthetics (what poetry is up to right now–what matters to poets, and how are they responding to what matters). I know of few communities like this in the world – the other I am familiar with is in the UK: open, focused, exploratory, welcoming, democratic and engaged to its very core. The Cascadia Poetry Festival is a vital necessity.

– Stephen Collis

The Cascadia Poetry Festival, held in Anacortes, WA from May 9-12, was a wonderfully fulfilling experience for both participants and invited guests. The festival programs consisted of readings and discussion panels by well-known, accomplished poets and writers who were colleagues, collaborators and friends of the late poet Sam Hamill. The connection with Sam was in fact the theme of the festival, but the festival discourse, especially the panels, took on a life of its own and developed into a series of heartfelt discussions about Zen, the strength and frailties of the human spirit and the nature of one’s relationship with those whom we admire.

As someone who attended as both invited guest and workshop participant, I especially enjoyed the afternoon readings by the other festival participants. The attendees of the readings consisted of local poets, writers and students. Some of these folk were published, some not. Some of them read from memory and some from notes or the printed page. Some were experienced readers, others were not. But what connected them all was a heartfelt desire to translate their experience of the world into the medium of words to share with others.

And this got right to the heart of the matter.

Christopher Yohmei Blasdel,  Shakuhachi performer, writer,
Adjunct Lecturer, The University of Hawaii, Manoa

And copies of the two anthologies that were launched at the fest are now available:

Samthology: A Tribute to Sam HamillSamthology: A Tribute to Sam HamillCover of the bilingual poetry anthology Make it True meets MedusarioMake It True meets Medusario

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

dashed cool colors line

You May Also Like

Toward Cascadian Independence:  For the Life of the Place as a Whole

Toward Cascadian Independence: For the Life of the Place as a Whole

What end does politics serve? Surely it must serve ends beyond itself. Why seek greater bioregional autonomy? For self-determination. Yes, but what purpose in turn shall that value serve? None some may say, it’s self-justifying. But then it becomes an absolute unto itself which can be used to justify many different things, some questionable. Why not come right out at the beginning and say what you’re really for?
The primary purpose of seeking greater bioregional identity and autonomy is to serve the life of the place and its people as a whole. Indeed, the primary purpose of Politics is to serve the life of the place and its people on many levels in an equitable and sustainable way.

E. Richard Atleo in Seattle & a 2005 Interview

E. Richard Atleo in Seattle & a 2005 Interview

With the assistance of the Center for World Indigenous Studies, I had the good fortune to interview E. Richard Atleo in 2005. Umeek is hereditary chief of the Ahousaht, grandson of the Keesta, the last of the Ahousaht whalers. He’s a research affiliate at the...