CASCADIA POETICS LAB TO HOST 10TH ANNIVERSARY CASCADIA POETRY FESTIVAL

What does it mean to be a part of a community? How do we continue to create art in an increasingly chaotic world? Explore these topics and celebrate the poetry of Cascadia at the 10th annual Cascadia Poetry Festival!
SEATTLE, WA, August 11, 2026 — From October 9-11, 2025, Seattle-based poetry nonprofit Cascadia Poetics Lab will be hosting the 10th Anniversary Cascadia Poetry Festival featuring writing workshops, panel discussions and readings from prominent poets and academics from the Cascadia bioregion and beyond. Featured events and offerings will be hosted at the Rainier Beach Community Club and Kubota Garden. 
 
The Cascadia Poetry Festival is a gathering of poets and bioregionalists exploring poetry’s connection to environmental, political, historical and sociological pursuits within the Cascadia bioregion. The festival aims to consider how prioritizing natural and cultural boundaries, rather than arbitrary political ones, can address climate change and other pressing social and political issues.
Featured speakers include allia abdullah-matta, Greg Bem, Amaranth Borsuk, Bill Carty, Xavier Cavazos, Zach Charles, Ching-in Chen, Stephen Collis, Gary Copeland Lilley, Tess Gallagher, Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Geneviève Hicks, Alicia Hokanson, Nadine Maestas, Dion O’Reilly, Roxi Power, Mateo Quispe, Linda Russo, Sharon Thesen, Miriam Tobin, Rodrigo Toscano, Matt Trease, and Terri Witek.
Featured workshops will explore the practices of bioregional poetics, poetry as politics, lyric and form, the connection between internal and external worlds and poetry in times of crisis. An afterparty will be hosted on Friday night and Saturday night at a nearby location in Ranier Beach.
Workshops include:
Startling the Poem Awake
Flickers of the Poetic, A Watch Party
Concerning Work and Poetry (of Course the Mundane is Generative!)
The Green Being
Cascadia as a Field of Action (Poetry as Politics)
Sponsors of the Festival include 4Culture Sustained Support and 4Culture Public Free Access, Creative West, the Vogt Family Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, ArtsFund, La Sala, and CPL Supporters.
Registration for an gold passes, workshop packages, reading packages and student passes are available now via the festival website: https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/2026-cascadia-poetry-festival-10/. More information on the festival and Cascadia Poetics Lab’s additional offerings are available at https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/ and a complete schedule of the event can be found here: https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/2026-cascadia-poetry-festival-10-schedule/ 

Cascadia Poetics Lab, a Seattle-based nonprofit, was founded in Auburn, Washington, on December 14, 1993. Founding Director Paul E. Nelson is available for interviews. (206) 422.5002 or pen@cascadiapoeticslab.org

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Contact Information

Paul Nelson
Cascadia Poetics Lab
Seattle, WA
United States
Telephone: (206) 422.5002