CPL Letter of Recommendation from Katie Sarah Zale

We are still basking in the glow of the honor of receiving a Humanities Washington 50th Anniversary Award! You can learn all about Humanities Washington and the 50th Anniversary Awards they granted to outstanding contributions to the humanities HERE.

In celebration of winning this award, we would like to share the letters of support and recommendation provided by CPL staff and colleagues that assisted us in receiving the award. Katie Sarah Zale, co-editor of Winter in America and panelist/reader at Cascadia Poetry Festival 9, nominated CPL and our founding director Paul Nelson for the award. Thank you, Katie! Below is her nomination, outlining our predominant programs and goals: 

Cascadia Poetics LAB (CPL) was founded December 14, 1993 in Auburn, WA, by Paul E. Nelson, with the mission of creating a weekly, syndicated radio public affairs interview program that aired, at the height of syndication, on 18 stations weekly, including KING-FM, KMTT-FM, the Mountain, KZOK, KJR AM & FM, and stations in Bellingham, Portland & Victoria, BC. Paul created over 700 hours of interview programming, much of which is online
at www.AmericanProphets.org. 

The Cascadia Poetry Festival, inspired by the work of poet Gary Snyder, is an annual gathering of poets and bio-regionalists to consider how prioritizing natural and cultural
boundaries, rather than arbitrary political ones, is a potent approach to addressing Anthropogenic Climate Disorder. The Poetry Postcard Fest, founded in 2007, is an annual 56-day experiment in spontaneity and community-building where registered participants send postcard poems to other poets. Online (& in person) workshops are ongoing.

Two in-residence plans are in the works: a low-income artist housing project called Cascadia’s Poet’s House and Kagean Ni House. The latter will be a literary arts/bioregional knowledge center in rural Western Washington that would aid researchers by creating a library focused on Cascadia topics and help poets live the life of a poet in a manner that would honor the spirit, work, and life of Sam Hamill. A poet, translator, friend of the organization, and founder of Copper Canyon Press, Hamill built a home outside of Port Townsend and named it “Shadow Hermitage” or “Kagean.” Paul envisions Cascadia’s Poet’s House as a low-income social housing/artist housing project to include at least 10-12 units, CPL offices, a community gathering space, a café, and a Japanese Onsen. The project will be connected to a farm, to the proposed Rainier Beach Food Innovation District and offer locally-grown organic ingredients. Poets who have qualifying incomes and who would be active in the creation of events at the house would be invited to apply. Art Space Inc. could be a partner and/or the Seattle Social Housing Development Board. The resident poets would be open to working with all members of the greater community. They could teach at Rainier Beach H.S. Christo Rey and other nearby high schools. A studio apartment will be left open for a Poet-in-Residence program, inviting an established poet to live at the house for a week or two to work and share their expertise with residents and at-large community members.