Cascadia Poetics LAB blog

Seattle-based poetry nonprofit Cascadia Poetics Lab is engaged in multiple celebrations throughout the Cascadia bioregion to celebrate the release of their poetry anthology Cascadian Zen Vol. I, published by Watershed Press. After a successful event at Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, WA on Monday December 4, 2023; the current calendar of launch events includes Peninsula College in Port Angeles, WA on December 7; Winekraft Wine Bar in Astoria, OR on December 8; Time Enough Books in Ilwaco, WA on December 9. All of these events are open to the public!

The Ridge is a poem in 20 parts, a meditation on a geological feature of Quadra Island, a large island in British Columbia, just north of the Strait of Georgia, and thus the Salish Sea. But the poem is also a meditation on what’s happening on the island and on the planet we share in what’s been described as devastating imagery. I would add that it’s a meditation on the human species as well, at this time in the early Anthropocene.
Robert Bringhurst is the author. Trained initially in the sciences at MIT, he makes his life in the humanities from his home on Quadra Island, where he’s worked in poetry, Native American linguistics and typography. An officer of the Order of Canada, former Guggenheim Fellow and winner of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence. He’s our guest today to talk about The Ridge. Robert, thanks for your time and hospitality.

Monday, Dec 4, 2023 7pm Cascadian Zen Launch at Elliott Bay Books with Paul E Nelson, Jason Wirth, Adelia MacWilliam and Gabrielle Gutiérrez y Muhs

Throughout the year, we organize events designed to foster a community of like-minded people centered around organic, open-form poetry, and an ecological philosophy that emphasizes a connection to our bioregion, its history and the indigenous people that lived here long, long before colonization. We aim to expose our supporters to ideas about art as an art-of-living practice, inspired by the spiritual practice of understanding the bioregion surrounding us: soil, air, water, flora, fauna, and weather. In 2023, we hosted a successful Poetry Postcard Fest and the 7th Cascadia Poetry Festival, along with launching Watershed Press and publishing our anthology Cascadian Zen Vol. I. This is all thanks to donations from people like you!

In the interview, Gutiérrez y Muhs discusses her journey from child farmworker to a professor with multiple degrees from multiple institutions, including Stanford University and Occidental College, and explains the values she learned from her working class background that she was able to incorporate later into academia. She also mentions her role as the 2018-2020 Theiline Pigott McCone Endowed Chair in the Humanities at Seattle University and her role as editor for Presumed Incompetent, both positions allowing her to focus on uplifting Chicanx and Latinx voices and highlight experiences of unequal treatment for POC, queer and working class people in academia.