Cascadia Poet’s House (A Social Housing/Artist Housing project)
We envision a social housing artist housing project to include at least 10-12 units, CPL offices and a community gathering space for events of 100-125, ground floor retail including a café, with soup, sandwiches and some groceries, as well as an onsen. Ideally the project would be connected to a farm, to the proposed Rainier Beach Food Innovation District and offer locally-grown organic ingredients. The café would be connected to ground floor community space which could host events, poetry readings, provide gallery space, banquets, &c.
Poets who have qualifying incomes and who would be active in the creation of events at the house including, but not limited to weekly critique circles (open to the community), readings, a regular open mic night and other events, would be invited to apply to be residents. We envision an international call for potential participants. This project also could be done as a land trust effort. Homestead Community Land Trust could be a partner and/or the Seattle Social Housing Development Board or CAST, the Community Arts Stabilization Trust.
Such a community of artists would be work with all members of the greater community to help event attendees to improve their sense of belonging, aid neuro-resilience and sharpen their own poetic gesture. Residents would represent the community in an appropriate manner. They could offer classes to high school students, or teach at Rainier Beach H.S., and other nearby high schools. A studio apartment could be left open for a Poet-in-Residence program, inviting an established poet to live there for a week or two to work with residents and at-large community members. The apartment would also be available for use as a space for writer’s residencies. We envision a model that could be adopted to other towns in the bioregion to create a circuit for poets.
Paul E Nelson
Founding Director
Cascadia Poetics Lab
(206) 422.5002
pen@cascadiapoeticslab.org