
Barry McKinnon Interview (from July 2015)
Paul: You know, you moved up here and one of the first things you did as a teacher in Prince George – was it UNBC at the time when you moved here – the University of Northern British Columbia?
Barry: No, it was the College of New Caledonia.
Paul: And you were teaching English in a welding class?
BM: Yup, it was a technical school. We moved into a technical school before they built the college.
PN: And this is 1969?
BM: Yeah, 1969. But in that first year here we taught out of the high school. We’d start teaching at three in the afternoon after the high school was out, so we were a night school. We were kind of interlopers. The high school teachers thought, “oh, here are these smarty pants academics coming in and taking over the functions that we’ve provided!”
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Jerome Rothenberg Interview from 2001
Jerome Rothenberg was a legendary poet, translator and anthologist. His work on various poetry anthologies, including Poems for the Millennium were an inspiration for our Cascadian Zen series. He died on April 21, 2024 and we’re presenting this archive audio of the interview conducted in November 2001 as our latest Cascadian Prophets podcast. R.I.P. Jerome! Our introduction from 2001.
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:05 — 64.7MB)
Cecil Giscombe Interview
Cecil Giscombe talks about his friendship with BC poet, the late Barry McKinnon, about how people in the US consider Canadian poets and about his own work in an interview conducted by Paul E Nelson June 23, 2024 in Prince George, BC.
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:08 — 53.8MB)
Robert Michael Pyle Interview
Bob met me at the retro Atomic Motel and we talked for over an hour about his new book, the poems in it, his childhood, bioregionalism, his trip to Cuba, Vladimir Nabokov’s notion via biographer Brian Boyd of “attending to the individuating detail” of one’s life (an upgrade from the same notion I’ve gotten from Blake and Pound) and his general “thing” “close attention to the natural world.” It’s the June 2024 Cascadian Prophets podcast:
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Interview with Bill Porter on the Film “Dancing With the Dead”
Paul E Nelson interviews Bill Porter on the film “Dancing With the Dead: Red Pine and the Art of Translation as it screens Sunday, April 21 at SIFF Cinema Egyptian.
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Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:47 — 35.4MB)
Nicholas Gulig Interview
The Poet Laureate of Wisconsin Nicholas Gulig discussing the influence legendary poet Lorine Niedecker had on his work, recreating her trip around Lake Superior and discussing the poem’s similarity with an altar.
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:14 — 66.3MB)
Tessa Hulls Interview Feeding Ghosts
Paul E Nelson interviews Tessa Hulls on Feeding Ghosts her graphic memoir
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Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:26 — 58.3MB)
Roxi Power Interview
Poet Roxi Power sings from her new book The Songs Objects Would Sing
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:02:19 — 85.6MB)
Robert Bringhurst Interview Part 3
In the third and final part of an October 22, 2023 interview Robert Bringhurst, he talks about blister rust, how bioregionalism is an antidote to bad politics and other subjects connected to his 55 page poem The Ridge,
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:15 — 36.1MB)
Rhea Miller on Cloudhand, Clenched Fist
To go back 30 years in one's writing is an exercise fraught with the possibility that the material...
Interview with Paul Nelson on the Poetry Postcard Fest
If you were to visit cascadiapoeticslab.org and click to the Poetry Postcard Fest page, you’d find...
Anne Tardos on Cascadian Prophets
I am grateful today to bring you an interview with Anne Tardos on Cascadian Prophets, reading from...

Cascadian Prophets: Interviews 1999-2023
is the second collection of transcribed interviews taken from the 30 year history of the Cascadia Poetics Lab and conducted by Paul E Nelson, CPL Founder. Interviewees include 7 USAmericans and 7 Canadians, 7 women and 7 men and 7 people who have died and 7 that at the time of publication (February 2, 2024) are still alive. Interviewees:
Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs – Mary Norbert Körte – Robert Bringhurst – Barry McKinnon – Colleen J. McElroy – Brenda Hillman – Daphne Marlatt – Diane di Prima – Miriam Nichols – Stephen Collis- Charles Potts – Robin Blaser – Peter Culley – Sam Hamill
The book is $30 plus shipping and is available online here.

Cascadian Prophets: Interviews 1999-2023
is the second collection of transcribed interviews taken from the 30 year history of the Cascadia Poetics Lab and conducted by Paul E Nelson, CPL Founder. Interviewees include 7 USAmericans and 7 Canadians, 7 women and 7 men and 7 people who have died and 7 that at the time of publication (February 2, 2024) are still alive. Interviewees:
Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs – Mary Norbert Körte – Robert Bringhurst – Barry McKinnon – Colleen J. McElroy – Brenda Hillman – Daphne Marlatt – Diane di Prima – Miriam Nichols – Stephen Collis- Charles Potts – Robin Blaser – Peter Culley – Sam Hamill
The book is $30 plus shipping and is available online here.
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Harry and Cleo Davenport Elser, wedding photo
Diana Elser
“Donation in memory of Harry Elser and Cleo Davenport Elser, two Montana ranch kids. Harry was a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. We learned to enjoy each place we lived – the Missouri River in Great Falls, Montana, the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas – the Great Salt Lake Basin, and always – Montana.”

Glen and Jessie Dodge
Sally Hedges-Blanquez
“For the memory of Glenn and Jessie Dodge, a World War One Vet and his wife, world-class grandparents and farmers in the town of Gate, Washington.”

Glen Dodge



