Cascadia Poetics Lab to Host 8th Cascadia Poetry Festival

By Veronica Martinez, Administrative Assistant, Cascadia Poetics Lab

Celebrate the poetry of the bioregion at the Cascadia Poetics Lab’s 8th Cascadia Poetry Festival! From November 1-3, 2024, Seattle-based poetry nonprofit Cascadia Poetics Lab will be hosting writing workshops, panel discussions, readings and celebrations featuring prominent poets and academics from throughout the Cascadia bioregion and the U.S. Featured events and offerings will be hosted at the Richard Hugo House, Spring Street Center, Seattle University and Neukom Vivarium at the Olympic Sculpture Park.

This year, the Cascadia Poetry Festival celebrates the launch of Cascadia Zen: Bioregional Writings on Cascadia Here and Now, Volume II, edited by Tetsuzen Jason Wirth, Paul E. Nelson and Adelia MacWilliam and published through Watershed Press, a project of the Cascadia Poetics Lab. After a successful publication and launch of Cascadian Zen Vol. I at the 7th annual Cascadia Poetry Festival, the nonprofit and its imprint will celebrate the release of second edition to the anthology series, which features work from artists, writers and cultural workers of the Cascadia bioregion exploring the intersections of bioregionalism, poetics and Zen. This year’s Cascadia Poetry Festival will feature writers and academics C.A. Conrad, Fred Wah, Koon Woon, CS Giscombe, Jami Macarty, Jill Lapointe, Sharon Thesen, Stephen Collis, Robert Lashley, Carletta Wilson, Daphne Marlatt, Robert Michael Pyle, Samar Abulhassan, Sharon Hashimoto, Claudia Castro Luna, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Meredith Quartermain, Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs and more. The event opens with a festival preview hosted by Margin Shift on October 31, followed by workshops and panels at the Richard Hugo House, Seattle University, Spring Street Center and Neukom Vivarium from November 1-3. Featured workshops include “Poetry as Walking and Mapping” with Jami Macarty and Meredith Quartermain and “Writing and Meditative Openness: How They Interact” with Daphne Marlatt and Fred Wah. An after party will be hosted the evening of November 1.

Admission to the festival will be free Saturday at the Hugo House after 2 P.M. for two sessions of the Floricanto Cascadia, “Flower & Song” in Spanish from the Nahuatl (Mexíca) word for Poetry. The Floricanto will be a curated “symphony of voices” from Cascadia showcasing Indigenous American poets, centering Mexican-American, Chicana/o and Latinx poetry from throughout Latin America present in Cascadia, honoring those who have left us in celebration of Día de los Muertos weekend. It will be closed out with an open mic monopoem reading, and an altár will be constructed by poets and CPL Board Members Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs and Lorna Dee Cervantes.

CPL board member Lorna Dee Cervantes says of the Floricanto Cascadia, “Fulfilling a prophecy heard from Elders in my early teens about The People of The North (Eagle) and The South (Condor) coming together in ‘Aztlan’ (Place of Herons) in the North for peace and understanding; that it was time to share secret, sacred ancestral knowledge with all, subjugated knowledges, ‘because the Earth needs healing’ from a world gone ‘out of balance’…Knowledges in which Poetry gives us access–in this place, now.”

Sponsors of the Festival include 4Culture, WESTAF, National Endowment for the Arts, Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, ArtsFund, Poets & Writers, Humanities Washington, the Seattle Art Museum, Spring Street Center/Subud Greater Seattle, ArtsWA and the Kimberly Miller Charitable Fund.

Join Cascadia Poetics Lab and Watershed Press in celebrating Cascadian Zen, Vol. II and the magnificent poetry and art of the bioregion! Registration for an early bird gold pass, deluxe gold pass and workshop package are available now via the festival website: https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/cascadia-poetry-festival-8/.. More information on the festival and Cascadia Poetics Lab’s additional offerings are available at https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/.

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Cascadia Poetics Lab, a Seattle-based nonprofit, was founded in Auburn, Washington, on December 14, 1993. Founding Director Paul E. Nelson is available for interviews. (206) 422.5002 or pen@cascadiapoeticslab.org