Cascadia Poetics LAB
Poetry Postcard Fest
Watershed Press
Cascadian Prophets Podcast
Cascadia Poetry Festival 8

Interview with Paul Nelson on the Poetry Postcard Fest

April 1, 2025
Zach Charles

If you were to visit cascadiapoeticslab.org and click to the Poetry Postcard Fest page, you’d find the following blurb. “The Poetry Postcard Fest is an annual 56 day experiment in spontaneity and community building. This literary 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 Nelson and Lana Ayers and has grown to include poets participating worldwide.” 

It’s a joy to talk to one of those initiators today. Paul E Nelson, dharma name Ryukan, is the son of a labor activist father and Cuban immigrant mother, from the west side of Chic-a-go. He moved to King County, WA, in 1988, and has since founded the Cascadia Poetics Lab and its cornerstone event, the Cascadia Poetry Festival. He is a bioregional poet and master interviewer, having interviewed folk such as Brenda Hillman, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Joanne Kyger, and many more. He is a member of the Eishoji Soto Zen temple in Rainier Beach, his neighborhood; a spiritual ecology practitioner and advocate for his neighbor dxʷwuqʷǝb, Place of Loon, also called Mape’s Creek; and a force on the spiritual plane as well as this one. 

He is the co-editor of the recently released Winter in America (Again: Poets Respond to 2024 election (Carbonation Press 2025), Cascadian Zen volumes 1 and 2 from Watershed Press, and 56 Days of August: Poetry Postcards, from Five Oaks press, among others, and the author of many volumes of poetry, some of my favorites of which are DaySong Miracle (Past 62) from Carbonation Press in 2024, Haibun de la Serna from Goldfish Press 2022, A Time before Slaughter (Apprentice House, 2020), and multiple volumes of interviews.

Sam Hamill said “Over the past decade or so, no one has done more for poetry in the Pacific Northwest than has Paul Nelson.” With the Poetry Postcard Fest, now in its 19th year, that influence is spreading well beyond the Cascadia bioregion and all over the world. 

Check out more of what the Lab does at https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/, and listen to more current and archival podcasts on Spotify or at https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/cascadian-prophets-podcast-2/.

VIDEO INTERVIEW

2 Comments

  1. Art Tulee

    Most excellent video interview! Ranging from the local to the regional to the global. As concerned with microbes as The Big Picture, it fed me with the flow of questing as infusing. Generous asks, bigsouled answers. I had inspirations for postcards left and right. Giants of Thought and Verse — Charles Olson, Marianne Williamson, Sam Hamill and others are given their due spotlights. (I was truly humbled to the floor for Paul to mention me.) All in all a big invite to the 2025 Poetry Postcard Festival. Registration is open.

  2. Ryukan

    You are very kind, Arthur. Keep hope alive!

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

Winter in America (Again Tour Highlights!

Winter in America (Again Tour Highlights!

Winter in America (Again Tour! Last week, the Winter in America (Again editors and contributors embarked on a mini book tour of Western Washington. Paul Nelson was joined by Roxi Power from California, allia abdullah-matta from New York, and Katie Sarah Zale from...

Cascadian Zen in Northern California

Cascadian Zen in Northern California

Cascadian Zen Book Event in Mendocino County, Northern California From Theresa Whitehill, event organizer: Ukiah poets and poetry scholars Theresa Whitehill, Armand Brint, Dan Barth, Michael Riedell, and Susan Baird will read a selection of poetry and other writings...

Winter in America (Again Tour Highlights!

Winter in America (Again Tour

Join us to celebrate Winter in America (Again with a mini-tour around Western Washington! Co-editors Paul Nelson and Katie Sarah Zale will be joined by Roxi Power of California and Allia Abdullah-Matta of New York, along with multiple contributors! Learn more about...