From PPF committee member Zach Charles:

I recently had the privilege and honor to interview Paul E Nelson, Founder of the Cascadia Poetics Lab and co-founder of the Poetry Postcard Fest with Lana Ayers, about the Postcard Fest. Our conversation ranged from cards he has enjoyed receiving to the community building potential of the fest, to the impact it can have on one’s individual place in this interconnected world, which is what I want to focus on in this post. During the interview, Paul posed the following question: 

Why am I here? Are you making a change, a difference in the world?

The answer to that, whether you like it or not, is yes. Simply by virtue of living on this Earth, you change it. This can be both an empowering axiom and a terrifying one. I think of a Coastal Salish Indigenous tradition and prayer that some in the Duwamish and other tribes would and do speak every morning: Thank you, for something dies for me today. Simply by our need to eat food, drink water, and breathe oxygen we change the world. We participate in a relationship with trees involving an exchange of breath. They inhale the carbon dioxide we exhale, and in exchange we inhale the oxygen they exhale. We drink and eat from the rivers and streams that flow by our homes. So, the question becomes, what kind of change, what kind of difference are you going to make? Will you be intentional about it? Can you be? Will it be just one living being that dies for you to eat today, or will thousands suffer (from plants to animals to human beings). 

Often, the spiritual dissonance that leads to people dying so soon after they retire from a job they didn’t really like, but afforded them fancy dinners for the course of their life is that they were not intentional in the change they left. Their “footprint” was a huge, ugly, messy, violent footprint because all they tried to do was gluttonously satisfy physical urges. And there are many forces in our USAmerican lives today that encourage this gluttony to profit off it, and seek to numb us to it. From the attention fracking of social mierda to the hidden, long and arduous journey food makes from its source to the supermarket to your plate. There is a much longer argument to be made about the Myth (propaganda) of the American Dream and its obfuscating role there, but to stay on point, the Poetry Postcard Fest can show us that we already have the tools to make these choices with care, the skills and awareness to make them in line with the ethics we purport to have (thank you to the ancestors). Paul went on to say:

To be creative, to be in the moment. These are all parts of how I think humans have to be in the world. I think humans are here on Earth school to learn how to be noble human beings. How to do no harm, how to be kind, how to find compassion even for people we don’t like … How are we going to build something in this country [U.S.A.]? And what values are we going to imbue it with that says, you know, you voted for Trump and you got fired and there’s a place for you to do the work that you’re meant to do in your community. And so to go to a deeper place I think is important. So yes, creativity is an important part of being here in a very deep way… 

Immediately, I think of the Zen Buddhist perspective that Paul brings to his life, and how that permeates the work he does in the world. “…how to be noble human beings. How to do no harm, how to be kind, how to find compassion even for people we don’t like…” There is an awareness here that the Poetry Postcard Fest points to, that the practice of writing and sharing that piece of yourself with someone who may be a stranger brings you closer to. This variety of attention is incredibly powerful today, especially when you consider the semi-hypnotized state social mierda requires for its attention fracking business model. How do you snap into your reality, pay close enough attention to yourself and your immediate surroundings in order to be noble, do no harm, be kind, and find compassion? whether with the food you eat, the way you treat your neighbors, or the kinds of energy you use on any given day? 

One way to start is with a postcard.

Thank you, Zach! You can listen to Zach’s interview with Paul HERE and register for the 2025 Poetry Postcard Fest HERE.

Give BIG to Cascadia Poetics Lab May 6-7!

Support Cascadia Poetics Lab programs like the Poetry Postcard Festival and Cascadian Prophets Podcast by donating to our Give Big fundraiser through Washington Gives May 6-7, 2025! You can Give Big to Cascadia Poetics Lab by clicking HERE!