The weekend of August 21-24, Paul Nelson and 3/4 of the Cascadia 2050 crew embarked on a journey to Cumberland, British Columbia for the Rain Shadow Poetry Festival! The first night of the festival, we celebrated the release of poet and CPL friend Lorin Medley’s newest chapbook released by Watershed Press, On the Way to Kluusms, with a beautiful reading at Artful: The Gallery in Courtenay, BC. Many congratulations to Lorin and Watershed Press on the successful release! The audio of Lorin’s reading is available HERE.

Lorin Medley reading at Artful: The Gallery

On Saturday, August 23, we enjoyed a full day of workshops and panels featuring Robert Bringhurst, Jan Zwicky, Harold Rhenisch and Paul Nelson. That evening, Cascadia 2050 members Zach Charles, Zaylan Jacobsen and myself (Veronica Martinez) presented our work of engaging with the land through poetry. I shared my experience living in the desert, and how disconnect with the land can quickly lead to dangerous and violent disconnect with the people that live on that land. Zach presented his PPF work tracking the Alki Beach tide through postcard poetry. Zaylan presented his poetry and photography captured on climbing trips in Cascadia, along with a gorgeous painting of Cascadia done by his younger sister. Robert Bringhurst closed the night with a reading.

Cascadia: Mother of Salmon painted by Zaylan Jacobsen’s younger sister[/caption]

Robert Bringhurst reading at The Abbey in Cumberland

On the last day of the festival, we enjoyed workshops and readings by Harold Rhenisch and Paul Nelson, then Zach and I embarked on the journey home. Although we ended up stuck at a ferry terminal on Vancouver Island for about 5 hours, we took the time to write our postcard poems and take in the beautiful scenery of the bioregion surrounding us. Below is a photo of our view while waiting for the ferry and a poem Zach wrote about the weekend when we finally returned to Seattle around 1 AM.

Thank you so much to Matt Law, Adelia MacWilliam, Erin Moonsister and the rest of the Rain Shadow Poetics Lab for hosting such an intimate and interactive weekend of poetry and environmental education in the beautiful town of Cumberland! Thank you to the wise and thoughtful presenters for sharing their work and knowledge. And thank you to Scott Lawrence and his wife Diane for welcoming us into their home, cooking for us and introducing us to the plentiful scenery and activities in their town! This trip was my first time north of the USAmerican border, and it was quite a weekend to remember. More audio from the event will be released shortly!

Riding with Veronica by Zach Charles, after returning from Cumberland 

 

south from K’ómoks valley in the poetic
rain shadow of the oral literature
in the air there and border officer lopez asks
for the rear window down and bids us goodnight
not unkindly
                   wearing his blue stripe usamerican flag
patch
           trump through to netanyahu
they are afraid to find out
                                         what’s next
they need reassurance
                                     perhaps a prize
will make you feel better says the fearful
netanyahu
the new yorker style cartoon shows two pencil
babies with recognizable hair crying
AND YOU ARE THE FUCKER WHO LAUGHS AT THEM
these crying babies       you laugh at
    fearful of a first toddling step //

 

oh they are laughing / they have woken up
these babies who laugh are Salmon returning
through funnel of estuary following
  the song of Mother Cascadia
we are all lost at sea until
we move back to the Orcas
we are all lying atop flat water
and in the curved black pupil unhidden
by our most gentle flesh we hold all the stars
until suddenly the barometer flutters and we scramble
                                   back to the boat //

 

riding with Veronica back into usamerica
and dictators with painted hands and shaky legs
chasing heaven see dark hoods in every shadow
and flinch and so many people are starving
in the rubble of straight border
   -ed places called Gaza and CECOT//

 

from the mountain top the cities are all small
                                                        grey smudges
Zaylan said and Cabri
    painted Mt Shasta as a Salmon Egg
                                          Cascadia’s
                           atomic unit (Zaylan again) //

 

the injured ankle is felt in the knee
and hip and oblique and neck
                         I AM EARTH AND WATER AND FIRE AND AIR
    and i feel the pressure of one thing against the next
Marx realized in the end says Tetsuzen
                    over falafel and hummus
                   a raised and heavily bandaged ankle no longer
                                                                     pronated
Marx realized in the end that capital or
                                             commune mattered
                                                                               not
                                            (i’m paraphrasing here)
      if the planetary organism that we are can
                                           not metabolize
        the ways we rearrange ourself
we study the self to forget the self to feel
the larger self to forget that self too //

 

the dictators of this world deserve no peace
                                         -ful hand to hold as they die
and our children and elders deserve our full attention
when they ask for it      for they collage
the ancestors and Raven out of cereal
boxes and orange index cards //

 

when the baby laughs for the first time
Ruth says they say the baby has awoken
google has nothing for “cascadian
indigenous baby laughing idioms”
(i’m asking in the wrong language
a language
                HR scrapes
                                      two gravel together
and brings forth still from the land
before telling us of) how Raven laughed
when he pulled on the geoduck and of how he laughed
harder still when the clam gave
                                birth to humans
      and GG leaned
through him and the observation
leaned through Gary that you white
                             guys are so fucking dumb you came
                   to this place and starved to death
        even though there was food falling off the hills //

 

Tōnay Kwā’ch’ilēch leaned through RB
and told us a whole damn list of things
                                          that hadn’t existed
                       with the meadowlark twice
                     but then on the back of Tule Elk
                                    Big Traveller rode
                      and put it all down    he said they said //

 

riding with Veronica after waiting five hours
for space on the ferry to go home
             the sky darkens during the crossing
             and the stars are interrupted by the light of the city
      our partners and pets and beds await us
      but first we must drive the inner coast
             facing away from the misleading sun
             from Mother Cascadia’s groin to her womb
She is singing a low and sad song
every year She expects three million
      of her children to return from Pacifica to her
      and She is receiving only twentyfivethousand
             she sings in the quiet voice
             that results from shallow breath
she is not being very zen about it

 

-ZBC 318a alki apt 25 aug 26 yo