cascadia poetics lab
is a nonprofit organization and vibrant community whose workshops, festivals, and opportunities for connection can open the door to transformative experiences.
Donate to Cascadia Poetics LAB
Celebrate Give Big 2025 by donating to Cascadia Poetics Lab! Cascadia Poetics Lab was established in 1993 by founding director Paul E. Nelson, and has provided poetic and bioregional programming to Seattle, the Cascadia bioregion and beyond for over 30 years with festivals, workshops, readings, publications and podcasts featuring writers and cultural workers.
With ongoing federal budget cuts impacting funding for arts and humanities, nonprofit organizations like Cascadia Poetics Lab are growing increasingly more dependent on financial support from individual donors and our community. During such uncertain and fractured times for all, we must be hyperlocal in our dependence and support for our communities, and it is vital that we continue to foster artistic spaces outside of the digital realm and connect to the present moment so that creativity can flourish. In contrast to the closed-minded nature of the current federal government, Cascadia Poetics Lab utilizes an open poetics approach to open the doors to culture and foster spaces that are emotionally interesting, diverse, and inclusive. In the words of Founding Director Paul E. Nelson, Cascadia Poetics Lab is “reconnecting people to place and making that connection mythic through poetry.”
However, our efforts to maintain and expand our programming are not cheap, and financial stability is a consistent struggle for arts and humanities nonprofits like ours. The Cascadia Poetics Lab board has been working tirelessly to establish and uphold a strategic plan in hopes of expanding our programming to more audiences and gathering funds for capacity building. Some of our financial goals for 2025-2026 are as follows:
EXPAND PARTICIPATION FOR OUR PROGRAMS AND OUTREACH (Goal: $25,000)
Hosting workshops, festivals, podcasts and other public events come at a cost to us, as we must pay for physical and digital material, website upkeep, payment to our staff and contractors, instructor fees, and marketing. With the establishment of Cascadia 2050, we hope to expand our offerings and introduce new programming developed for younger poets and arts programming at local schools, which raises our need for funding and participation in programs.
EXPAND FUNDING FOR CPF9 (Goal: $40,000)
The Cascadia Poetry Festival bridges borders and gathers poets, artists, academics, and cultural workers from Cascadia and beyond to engage in workshops, activities, panels, readings and more. The Cascadia Poetry Festival costs on average $40,000 to host, as we pay our presenters, work with local venues, and provide scholarship opportunities to students and young people with limited funds.
INCREASE CAPACITY (Goal: $50,000)
Cascadia Poetics Lab runs on the hard work of a few paid contractors and many dedicated volunteers. By increasing our budget, we can afford to hire our administrative assistant full-time, pay our contractors for more time, provide our founding director a livable wage, and ensure long-term sustainability for the organization.
DONATE TO BECOME A SPONSOR
$100
Founders Circle
Support our programming and receive early registration and lineup information for the 9th Cascadia Poetics Lab, along with an exclusive monthly newsletter featuring writing from our board members and collaborators.
$1000
Poetry Postcard Fest Sponsor
Poetry Postcard Fest sponsorships of $1,000 annually will receive a link to your business, book, or other personal projects on our website, and your logo will be represented in our weekly emails!
$2000
Cascadian Prophets Podcast Sponsor
Support our over 30-year history of interviews and broadcasting featuring prominent poets, artists and cultural workers. With a donation at this level, we will include short promotions for your business or project in our podcast episodes.
$2000
Cascadia Poetry Festival Sponsor
Support our yearly multi-day gathering of poets and creatives from Cascadia and beyond!
$8.34 a Month
Monthly Donation
Support our programming with a small monthly donation that makes a big difference! Monthly donors receive access to our exclusive newsletter with extra poetic and bioregionalist content by Cascadia Poetics LAB board members and collaborators.
CASCADIA POETICS LAB PROGRAMS AND EVENTS
Learn more about some of our key projects
Cascadia Poetry Festival
The Cascadia Poetry Festival started in in 2012 and is a regular gathering of poets and creatives with workshops and talks, hosted in the Cascadia Bioregion. We are excited to announce Cascadia Poetry Festival 9, October 10-12, 2025! Brenda Hillman and Robert Michael Pyle are two of our 2025 participating poets.
Cascadia 2050
Cascadia 2050 is our newest youth initiative, created with the intent to establish a foundation for the next generation of artists, poets and activists to express themselves openly and deepen connections to their self, place and their surrounding communities. Cascadia 2050 extends the programming of CPL to poets under 40 and hopes to increase involvement in local schools.
Kagean Ni and Cascadia Poets House
We envision physical spaces for poets, artists and bioregionalists to work on their craft and find community through our proposed Kagean Ni and Cascadia Poets House projects. Kagean Ni would be a retreat center in the Olympic Peninsula, while Cascadia Poets House would serve as low-income artist housing and studio space in the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle.
Events
Cascadia Poetics Lab hosts readings and gatherings in collaboration with partnering arts, culture and bioregionalism organizations.
Poetry Postcard Fest
Founded in 2007, The Poetry Postcard Fest is an annual 56 day experiment in spontaneity and community-building where poets send 31 first-draft poems on postcards to other participants around the world. Registration for PPF 2025 is open now!
Cascadian Prophets Podcast
The Cascadian Prophets Podcast was built upon the original work of Cascadia Poetics Lab’s founder Paul Nelson as the foundation of Cascadia Poetics Lab. The Cascadian Prophets podcast produces in depth interviews with poets, authors, educators, indigenous leaders and other cultural workers, with a focus on promoting cultural activities toward sustaining the Cascadia bioregion, place and presence.
Workshops
Cascadia Poetics Lab hosts poetry workshops, available to the general community, with reading, writing and discussion exercises that intend on helping participants learn new techniques of expression and literary creativity while focusing on place and presence. Scholarships are regularly provided.
MISSION
Empowering people to practice poetry & deepen connections to place, self & the present moment.
“What timely alchemy is this? Poetics as Cosmology with readings from Brenda Hillman’s In a Few Minutes Before Later got me writing again. For five weeks, I’ve been breathing in from an open field and exhaling without the usual constrictions of thought and form. Paul Nelson throws the raw materials in a pot: a group of new and seasoned writers, all things organic and serial, and then stirs in various prompts and excitements. There’s a whole lot of heart, mind, and soul scholarship on offer here. Paul is the real deal.”
– Lorin Medley, Comox, BC, Feb, 2023
Organization Data Summary
ORGANIZATION NAME
Cascadia Poetics LAB
TAX ID (EIN)
91-1618296
DEMOGRAPHICS
Hispanic & Latinx
ADDRESS
9030 Seward Park Ave S 213
Seattle, WA 98118
SERVICE AREAS
Seattle, WA, US
King County, WA, US
WA, US
US
BC, CA