Dear CPL Fan. I trust you & yours are well in these chaotic times. When I read that Chinese astrology refers to The Year of the Fire Horse (2026) and the Year of the Fire Goat (2027) as the Red Horse and Red Goat CALAMITY, I knew we were in for turbulence, but c’mon! May there be peace in our world and may we be there for each other. We’re here to support your own neuro-resilience through a poetry practice. To that end:

We need volunteers for our Spring Poetry Postcard Fest Activations:

March 21, 2026 — 11AM–1PM — Chinook Beach Park
April 1, 2026 — 6PM–8PM — yəhaw̓’ Indigenous Creatives Collective
April 18, 2026 — 11AM–1PM — Kubota Garden
April 25, 2026 — 11AM–1PM — Be’er Sheva Park for a blessing of Mapes Creek
May 2, 2026 — 11AM–1PM — Dead Horse Canyon
June 6, 2026 — 11AM–1PM — Pritchard Reserve

We’ll have postcards, postcard collage materials, speakers familiar with the parks &/or the plants and animals and, after the first activation, these events are to be led by our Cascadia 2050 Youth Committee. We also plan to talk about and hopefully create a Personal Universe Deck for each park. If you do not know about the amazing parks in Rainier Beach, come just to see what keeps us connected to the natural world in the diverse 98118. & there will be coffee and pastries at all the morning activations supplied by Onda Origins, for which we are grateful. Of course the notion of Activations comes directly from our partner the Rainier Beach Action Coalition, which works harder than anyone to keep this neighborhood the best kept secret in the Puget Sound region.

Now, a little bad news about Cascadia 2050 and CPL. On March 3, 2026, in an emergency board meeting, the CPL staff was laid-off. We will especially miss Verónica Martinez, who was three months short of her 3rd anniversary with CPL and always worked higher than her pay grade. Your humble narrator also lost his salary, but continues as a volunteer until we right the ship and figure out how to best make such an entity go in a time of economic chaos. Our mission is as vital as ever and our 20th Poetry Postcard Fest and 10th Cascadia Poetry Festival will happen, as planned.

We will be starting an official Spring 2026 Fund Drive, so you will be hearing more, but we always take tax-deductible donations at: https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/support-cascadia-poetics-lab-2/  Now would be exquisite timing. Or sign up for a workshop: https://paulenelson.com/larfp-and-pac-2026/ We will also forge ahead with podcasts and we will be creating an Arts Roundtable for Artists and Cultural organizations in the Rainier Beach Neighborhood.

Having been around since December 1993, we have survived many other calamities, & we should have expected something brutal when we put a failed steak salesman and convicted felon in the highest office in the land. But Stéphane Mallarmé was right when he said: “Poetry is the language for a state of crisis” so here we go. Call or email if you have any questions or if you can volunteer for March 21 or any of the Poetry Postcard Activations.

Paul