by Ryukan | Jul 12, 2018 | Poetry Postcard Fest
Reading Mark Gonnerman’s book A Sense of the Whole: Reading Gary Snyder’s Mountains and Rivers Without End I came to Tim Dean’s essay on The Other Voice. In the essay he states that in his 40 year epic poem, since Snyder: …harmonizes a vast...
by Ryukan | Jul 8, 2018 | Poetry Postcard Fest
Two editors of 56 Days of August and two contributors gathered yesterday at the annual Poets in the Park event in Redmond, Washington. Ina Roy-Faderman, Your Humble Narrator, Joanna Thomas and Matt Trease were the facilitators of an intimate workshop during which time...
by Ryukan | Jul 3, 2018 | Poetry Postcard Fest
I have been getting caught up on some of Sam Hamill’s work since his death back in April. Last night reading from his 1981 book of “casual essays” or “over-the-shoulder” glances he titled At Home in the World, I came across an essay...
by Ryukan | Jun 14, 2018 | Blog
The August POetry POstcard Fest happens for the 12th year in 2018. The fest has become the biggest annual funder of SPLAB and we’re hoping that you will participate and help spread the postcard love. Also, there will be two postcard events happening in the Puget...
by Ryukan | Jun 7, 2018 | Blog
Some early reviews of Becoming Cascadian are coming in. (See below). I appreciated Andrew Schelling’s notion that you can find bodhisattvas anywhere, his talk about reading Thoreau’s journals, and his feeling that the best tool for bioregionalists is the...
by Ryukan | May 29, 2018 | Blog
SPLAB’s first bioregional poetics retreat is this weekend. Becoming Cascadian is an intensification of the work done at the Cascadia Poetry Festivals we’ve staged over the years and Andrew Schelling, our keynote poet is set to arrive on Thursday. There are...
by Ryukan | May 19, 2018 | Blog
The retreat we have been planning for a few months happens in two weeks. Becoming Cascadian was a response to the desire by the SPLAB Board to continue events that operate at the intersection of poetics and bioregionalism, but do not require the kind of budgets as the...
by Ryukan | May 10, 2018 | Blog
Republished from the South Seattle Emerald: In attempting to explain what bioregionalism is to one of the other parents at my daughter’s elementary school yesterday, he heard me say that a bioregion is what our nation would be if political boundaries were drawn by...
by Ryukan | May 8, 2018 | Poetry Postcard Fest
Thursday and Friday, (5.10 & 5.11.2018) I will be the Methow Valley for events that involve the August Poetry Postcard Fest. Fest registration starts in less than two months and this is the first fest we’ve facilitated since the release of 56 Days of...
by Ryukan | May 8, 2018 | Blog
The annual Give Big fundraiser for Seattle area non-profit organizations has developed into a significant source of funds for SPLAB, an organization that has created an incredible amount of work in the 24+ years it has been in existence: 450 hours of radio interview...
by Ryukan | Apr 25, 2018 | Blog
by Ryukan | Apr 16, 2018 | Blog
I sat down with Paul Nelson, SPLAB founding director, to find out about the upcoming retreat SPLAB is bringing to the Cascadia region. First, what is Cascadia? Cascadia is a bioregion that begins in the south at Cape Mendocino, at the beginning of the Cascadia...
by Ryukan | Mar 30, 2018 | Blog
It’s getting more difficult to find spaces that welcome poets. One that worked well for a couple of months is making other plans for the monthly night of poetry that we started in December 2017. We’re grateful to Jude’s for the run, even if it was...
by Ryukan | Mar 28, 2018 | Blog
The Cascadia Poetry Festival returns May 9-12, 2019, in Anacortes, Washington! All events except workshops will happen at the Croatian Cultural Center, 801 5th Street in Anacortes. In addition to a tribute to Sam Hamill, there will be the launch of two anthologies,...
by Ryukan | Mar 23, 2018 | Blog
The Cascadia Poetry Festival will not happen in 2018. While we work on a new home for the main festival after hosting it in Tacoma last year, Seattle in 2012, 2014, 2016, guiding the event in Nanaimo, BC, in 2015, and also helping to guide the 2017 version in...
