Cascadian Zen Vol. II Review in Salish Current

By Mickey Mann in Salish Current:

‘Cascadian Zen Volume II’ is an intricate portrait of what it means to live in the Cascadian region.

“So the function of poetry, I think, is to present a candid view of the actual mind with all its contradictions and all its compassion for itself and for others caught in the same boat of meat,” said Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in his closing remarks from a 1994 interview with Paul E. Nelson while sitting in the Tacoma Mall.

At the time of that interview, Nelson, an editor of the recently released anthology “Cascadian Zen Volume II,” was in the early days of his career as a poet, interviewer and essayist. After moving to the Northwest in 1988 from Chicago, he founded Cascadia Poetics LAB and Watershed Press. Nelson has conducted more than 700 interviews with activists, philosophers, political figures and poets. He has decided that the poets are the most potent of all these figures: “I interviewed Ginsberg in ‘94, Michael McClure in ‘95, and then many, many, many others…. It started to seem to me that the poets had the most justice.”

In “Cascadian Zen Volume II,” released Nov. 1 by Watershed Press, bioregionalist authors reflect on the daily life of Cascadians and the power of poetry in creating an ecological and community-based democracy. The publication contains nonfiction, poetry, interviews and artwork and was edited by Nelson, Tetsuzen Jason Wirth and Adelia MacWilliam, with Theresa Whitehill.

Nelson admitted, after revisiting his conversation with Ginsberg, that “yes, I tried to steal the fire of every single poet that I’ve interviewed.” Readers familiar with Nelson’s archive might recognize that conversation from 1994 with Ginsberg. “Cascadian Zen” authors often attribute their beginnings to the influence of the Beat poets. Ginsberg’s philosophies and the mission of Cascadian bioregionalists share a rebellion against socially constructed borders, like that of the mind or of a government.

The anthology is an intricate portrait of what it means to live in the Cascadian region. Its multimedia entries introduce bioregionalism to readers who hadn’t considered themselves a part of the movement. By characterizing the land itself or comparing common cultural scenes to daily human relationships, bioregionalism intertwines the regional reality with the human condition of living one moment at a time.

Bioregionalism and community

Bioregionalism began in the 1970s among Beat authors and eco-activists such as Peter Berg and Gary Snyder. As a movement it centers on holistic living and counters disposability by valuing objects, land and collective experience. Community, within the bioregionalist context, is not defined by counties, countries or borders, but by rather those living in a similar physical environment.

In a recent interview at his home in King County, Nelson reflected on the 1994 interview with Allen Ginsberg three decades ago, chuckling to himself, “the same boat of meat.” Behind him was a large personal library, shelves and library carts with piles of books precariously stacked.

Nelson routinely recites pieces of poetry, pulling from a pile nearby in an effort to describe bioregionalism in all its facets: “…we can re-envision how we live in a place by seeing our nation with boundaries defined by nature and not by legislatures. We have more in common with people in Vancouver [British Columbia] than we do with people in Toledo [Ohio]. You know, we have rain most of the year, we have a connection to salmon, the cedars are here, the western red cedars, at least for now.”

Imagination and democracy of the mind

For a bioregionalist poet, the mundane or common experience can act as a connecting fiber to facilitate what Ginsberg calls, “democracy of the mind.” In his lesser-recognized work, “Autumn Leaves,” Ginsberg, primarily known for his erotic and stream-of-consciousness style, slows down. Written when he was in his 60s, it reflects on the caring of his body for the first time. The poem touches on taking vitamins, moisturizing his feet and testing his blood sugar.

Ginsberg believed that poeticizing the mundane allows you to document, “…details, fantasies, noticings that are permanent to everybody or common to everybody. In that sense, eternal perceptions.” In sharing this kind of documentation, readers can begin to imagine their own life as the author’s, in the important, small ways that make up all of our days.

Nelson followed a reading of “Autumn Leaves” with William Carlos Williams’ “The Act“:

There were the roses, in the rain.
Don’t cut them, I pleaded.
They won’t last, she said.
But they’re so beautiful
where they are.
Agh, we were all beautiful once, she said,
and cut them and gave them to me
in my hand.

This poem and “Autumn Leaves” share a sentiment of change that brings with it anxiety and a kind of sweetness in loss. Our bodies age and change, like autumn leaves or like a final act. But there are forever the small things: cutting flowers and taking our daily vitamins.

Nelson says poetry is different from prose or political rhetoric in that it accesses our imagination through music, imagery and content: “When those three are active together, poetry has a different effect on our brains, on our consciousness, something that prose can’t do.”

The Cascadian poet

Nelson named Lorin Medley as an exemplar of the Cascadian poet in the anthology. Medley swims in the open waters of the Salish Sea every day in her hometown of Comox, B.C. “Her poems are amazing,” he said.

In her poem “Casting Lines at Tide Change,” Medley writes on catching a salmon in her dreams:

Last night in my dream
you filleted a fish
right there on our bed —
ran a knife along the edge of the backbone,
offhand as usual.

She goes on to compare her lover to a caught salmon; the way they are hooked, the guts scooped up by gulls after fillet or the way a backbone might be removed. The poem has a rueful tenderness that speaks to the relationship but also to the land. An act familiar to a Cascadian resident replenishes the imagination with real memories, leading to empathy for the fish and for the subjects of the poem.

John Brandi’s writing reflects similar life stages to “Autumn Leaves.” While evoking environmental characteristics of the Northwest, Brandi weaves images with sentiments that break individualistic barriers with the power of shared experience.

Brandi mentions the atmospheric rivers common to the Cascades in autumn and the camellia flower, known to grow fervently within our mild winters and warm summers. All the while, his body is present, not the reader’s own but it might as well be. The poet and reader together look to clouds and familiar seasonal changes. One can feel at home, from the planets above to the purple within a rain cloud. In viewing the intimate and small lives of people living similarly, readers may learn to be more present in their own lives.

American individualism and poetry

For those who live within the same bioregion, poetry acts as a documentation of the changing ecology in our time of environmental crisis. It may even move us to action.

The majority of political rhetoric pulls from either end of a spectrum, often drowning out narratives of a shared American experience. The role of poetry as a tool in democracy, said Nelson, is not to directly address the political subject at hand but to create a practice of seeing yourself in others. Imagination becomes a tool of perception that yields empathy. “Poetry is not designed to change someone’s mind Poetry is designed to open someone’s mind.”

Poetry creates an opportunity to understand another person’s reality and, in turn, can lead to a more connected democracy. “Poetry is the language for a state of crisis,” said Nelson. When a person can imagine themselves sitting by a Western red cedar, even without having done so, it creates a connection to a tree, to an environment, through imagination and empathy. An experience shared and documented has a social currency capable of making democratic change.

If we are all bound to be in the “same boat of meat,” as Ginsberg said, then to take care of our bodies and the environments that nurture them and to imagine more than what is are small daily tasks that hold immense opportunity. Commenting on the power of imagination, Ginsberg said, “The mind is moving all the time from the Cascades to the lower east side to the bottom of the ocean to the black holes at the end of the universe.”

— By Mickey Mann

Thank you so much for this exploration of Paul Nelson and Cascadian Zen! Cascadian Zen Vol. II is available for purchase HERE.