Cascadia Poetry Festival 11

One memorable idea from the festival came from Jason Wirth about the practice of Zen. He talked about how Zen is about radical honesty which was a very timely insight, seeing how honest and open the first panel was on Saturday morning.

– Anonymous, Cascadia Poetry Festival 6 Anacortes

The most memorable thing for me was when I attended the poetry circle and one man, I forgot his name, read a poem while Christopher Yohmei played the shakuhachi (a bamboo Japanese flute). It was an absolutely beautiful performance! But just in general though, it was really nice to listen to everyone’s poems and to even share one of my own.  I left the festival wondering about Sam Hamill. I heard a lot of people talk about him and mention him at the festival, and I read a little bit about him beforehand since it was sort of held in his honor. But I felt like I didn’t know enough about him to follow everyone’s conversations, so I’m interested to learn more about him and read some of his poetry and stuff. Overall I was really happy to have gotten to attend the festival 🙂

– Anonymous, Cascadia Poetry Festival 6 Anacortes

One memorable moment from the poetry festival was when Claudia Castro Luna talked about the pocket poetry that was started by a man (poet) who taught at a public school and there were little business type cards to take to remember and the poem from this 8th grade girl translated from Spanish to English was on it. It was my little souvenir and keepsake from the poetry festival.  I would love to know more about Copper Canyon press and the details of Sam’s involvement. I have not read or heard much of Sam’s work so I would be curious to read more of his works to get to know more about him. The panel on Saturday morning gave the best culminating view on who Sam was and how he interacted with his students and colleagues.  I got to share some of my poetry and it was very meaningful and after one of the sessions, one of the poets in the circle during the living room session named David came up to me afterward to encourage me to keep writing poetry. It was really sweet and such a good group of people to learn and share from.

– Anonymous, Cascadia Poetry Festival 6 Anacortes

One of the more memorable quotes I heard at the festival was from Claudia Castro-Luna who spoke to her simply existing (as a Spanish speaking person) in America was the most radical thing you can do right now.

– Anonymous, Cascadia Poetry Festival 6 Anacortes

One memorable idea from the festival was during Panel One where Dr. Jason Tetsuzen Wirth talks about the inspiration of writing today. I found it interesting that since the world war people have shifted their interests in writing because through the tough times people have found a reason to express their feeling and emotion through poems.  A Question that came into mind during the 2nd panel was that, how can someone who doesn’t fully understand of the language to better understand the experience and emotion that the writer went through creating the poems. Do we need to understand the origin of the language to interpret the poem in a different perspective?

– Anonymous, Cascadia Poetry Festival 6 Anacortes

After Saturday’s Living Room I ended up getting caught up in a conversation. The talkers consisted of me and two other women; Sandra and Julia. We spent nearly an hour just talking about the importance of writing throughout one’s life. All three of us fell into different generations and demographics but we quickly put to bed the superficialness of how it might seem like we’d have very little in common. Because the reality is  we’re more alike than different….. I find this to be true for most humans. But really, it was just so enjoyable to laugh and find comfort in the ability to write for one’s self.  To prove nothing to no one but giving in to the want of expressing your feelings about the world around you to yourself. How empowering pen and paper can be in a world that at times can seem like it’s trying to silence us all slowly. Impressively Sandra had released a book this year, Boats for Women. Over the past week I’ve found such joy in reading her words long after our conversation ended.  It felt like a gift that kept on giving. And as it now resides in its new home on my library shelf. I get peace over knowing that for me; poetry, Sandra’s book, and the many conversations I hope to have in the future are all gifts I’ve been given and hope to give to others as times keeps going.

– Anonymous, Cascadia Poetry Festival 6 Anacortes

One memorable thing from the festival was when we got to be in a circle and everyone read their original poems. More specifically, when someone played the shakuhachi instrument along with someone reading a poem. I feel that the music definitely enhanced the poem, which made me really drawn to the whole entire piece.   One thing I was still confused about during the panel discussing the translation of poems was when they talked about how  Sam could translate poems of other languages (such as Chinese/Japanese) while barely even knowing the language itself.

– Anonymous, Cascadia Poetry Festival 6 Anacortes

“I’ve been to many poetry festivals over the years, and the Cascadia Festival is one of the best at combining literary energy with explorations of environmental, political, historical, and sociological pursuits with a general celebration of poetry. The invited poets offered a wonderful representation of the diversity of our bioregion—as did the poetics of the works shared. There were youth events, Veteran events, “living room readings” (that featured festival poets and anyone from the community could share work in). The WA historical piece embodied by the celebration of Richard Brautigan, the consistent return to thinking about poetry and the environment, the involvement of young poets, older poets: really, I cannot articulate how generous and egalitarian and stimulating the festival is. Truly, The Cascadia Poetry festival is a great thing for Humanities WA and Arts WA to be a sponsor of—to put it simply, The Festival repped well and did both organizations proud! I was glad to be there for it and am eager for the next one.”

– Tod Marshall
Washington Poet Laureate

“The Cascadia Poetry Festival is absolutely unique, offering both attention to local conditions (both social and geographical / ecological), and to general matters of aesthetics (what poetry is up to right now–what matters to poets, and how are they responding to what matters). I know of few communities like this in the world – the other I am familiar with is in the UK: open, focused, exploratory, welcoming, democratic and engaged to its very core. The Cascadia Poetry Festival is a vital necessity.”

– Stephen Collis