Cascadia Poetics LAB
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Cascadian Prophets Podcast
Cascadia Poetry Festival 8

Podcasts

Cascadian Prophets Interviews (1999-2023) by Paul E Nelson

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 Guitiérrez 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, or here: (link coming soon)

Cascadian Prophets Podcast

The Cascadian Prophets Podcast

Produces in depth interviews with poets, authors, indigenous leaders & culture workers.

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Harry and Cleo Davenport Elser, wedding picture

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.

Robert Bringhurst The Ridge Interview Part 2

Robert Bringhurst The Ridge Interview Part 2

Through his books, I took lessons from Ezra Pound, who was a schoolmaster at heart and had a lot of things to say about what young poets should read and how they should read it. His politics were bonkers, but his ear was a good ear. I learned a lot from him and from others. But it dawned on me one day that my literary schooling had a gaping hole in the center. Except as a colonial construction, the land I was born in – the whole continent and hemisphere I was born in – was missing from this otherwise detailed map of the literary world. It was as if there were no Native American culture, no Native American literature – and I knew this to be false,

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Robert Bringhurst The Ridge (Interview) Pt. 1

Robert Bringhurst The Ridge (Interview) Pt. 1

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.

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Stephen Thomas Interview Part 2

Stephen Thomas Interview Part 2

The second half of our July 4, 2023 interview with Steven Thomas, former Seattle poet, co-founder of the Seattle Poetry Festival and former teacher at University Prep. He discussed his life, struggles with addictions, move to Germany and his latest book of poetry What is Between Us.

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