Poetry Postcard Activations
Free Poetry & Community Events in Rainier Beach!
Life as Rehearsal for the Poem and Poetics as Cosmology 2026 Workshops
A five week online (Zoom) workshop best suited for continuing participants and more experienced poets (open to open form) in workshops facilitated by Cascadia Poetics Lab and Poetry Postcard Fest Co-Founder Paul E Nelson. Participate in reading and discussion of foundational essays, interviews, listening and other assignments, as well as spontaneous poetry composition exercises. In Winter 2026, we’ll explore a short history of Cascadian poetry, touching on:
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- Theodore Roethke
- Fred Wah
- Daphne Marlatt
- George Bowering
- Mary Norbert Kõrte
- John Olson
- Phyllis Webb
- Stephen Collis
- Sharon Thesen
- Barry McKinnon
- Cedar Sigo
- George Stanley
- Robin Blaser
Life as Rehearsal for the Poem (LARFP)
- Sundays 3-5 PM PDT
- March 29, April 5, 12, 19, and 26, 2026
Poetics as Cosmology (PAC)
- Thursdays 3-5 PM PDT
- March 26, April 2, 9, 16, and 23, 2026
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
PPF International List!
PPF Lists! Thank you to everyone that registered for the 2025 Poetry Postcard Fest. REGISTRATION FOR PPF 2025 IS NOW CLOSED. We understand that some...
Cascadian Zen in Northern California
Cascadian Zen Book Event in Mendocino County, Northern California From Theresa Whitehill, event organizer: Ukiah poets and poetry scholars Theresa...
Postcard Lists and Open House July 4!
Happy postcard season! Postcard lists go out this Friday, July 4! If you have already confirmed your mailing address with us, you are good to go! If...
Postcards at the Olympic Sculpture Park
Join us for another summer Poetry Postcard Fest event! On July 13, 2025 from 11 AM-3 PM PST, Cascadia Poetics Lab will be tabling at the Olympic...
Winter in America (Again Tour
Join us to celebrate Winter in America (Again with a mini-tour around Western Washington! Co-editors Paul Nelson and Katie Sarah Zale will be joined...
Matt Trease Interview (The Outside)
It was Matt Trease who turned my attention to an interview that Eileen Myles gave in 2015 in which she said: There is still a lot of power built up...
Rivers From the Sky: Formation of the Aleutian Low Pressure System & The Origin of Cascadia’s Climate, Waters, and Forests
Photo: Source Nasa Earth Observatory – Low-Pressure System over Northwestern Pacific by David McCloskey Click here to link to nullschool.net...
PPF Address Verification JUNE 22!
PPF Address Verification THIS SUNDAY! We are changing our process for verifying we have the correct mailing address and information for PPF...
Jack Kerouac and Buddhism at Elliott Bay Books
Jack Kerouac and Buddhism at Elliott Bay Book Company Join CPL friends and Beat Generation scholars Jim Jones and Charles Shuttleworth at Elliott...
Two versions of what will be basically the same workshop to discuss the concept of the daysong, how to accomplish one and what it means to the poet who pulls it off.
Thursday, January 22, 2026 3-5 PM PDT
Monday, January 26, 2026 3-5 PM PDT
Workshop Cost: Free, with optional donation of $20-$100.00 (On Zoom)
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
CPF9 Kubota Garden Reading VIDEO!
CPF9 Kubota Garden Reading On October 12, 2025, we began the last day of the 9th Cascadia Poetry Festival with a reading at Kubota Garden. We...
Postcard Poetry Group
Join the Postcard Poetry Group! Can't wait until the next PPF to start sending postcard poetry? Join the postcard poetry group! Postcard poet...
Cascadia Poetics Lab Gift Guide!
Happy holidays and happy upcoming winter solstice! We hope everyone has been able to stay safe during the cold and wet weather and enjoy a peaceful...
The Poetry Postcard Fest is an annual 56-day experiment in spontaneity and community building. This literarary event is a self-guided workshop in spontaneous composition where people sign up to send 31 original poems on postcards to folks on a participation list before the end of August. The fest was initiated in 2007 by poets Paul E. Nelson and Lana Ayers, and has grown to include poets participating worldwide. Registration opens annually on September 1.
Stephan Torre in Atlin, B.C.
What a great way to entice someone to read a book: “Like a prize-fighter boxing over his weight, Stephan Torre has long made his home in the wilderness, negotiating environments that are hostile…
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download ()
Our current media landscape seems hooked on a doom loop, an apocalyptic dream of human self-annihilation from collapsing nation states and anarchy to climate change to AI terminators, to genocidal warmongering. In order to avoid going down with that ship, we, as humans, are going to need to flip the script, to learn to think differently.
Click this link for more information about the workshop Thinkingwith: Writing Strategies for Reconnecting to Earth.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
February 15, 22, March 1, 8, and 15, 2026
thinkingwith: writing strategies for reconnecting to earth
Our current media landscape seems hooked on a doom loop, an apocalyptic dream of human self-annihilation from collapsing nation states and anarchy to climate change to AI terminators, to genocidal warmongering. In order to avoid going down with that ship, we, as humans, are going to need to flip the script, to learn to think differently.
Click this link for more information about the workshop Thinkingwith: Writing Strategies for Reconnecting to Earth.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
February 15, 22, March 1, 8, and 15, 2026
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We recognize that our home office is on the ancestral homeland of the Duwamish, Muckleshoot and other Coastal Salish tribes. Our dedication to bioregionalism is to co-exist on this land in the sacred manner as practiced by the traditional ways of these indigenous people.
Statement on Ahimsa by Board Member Jason Wirth
January 20, 2021
The (Poetry Postcard Fest) and the Cascadia Poetry Festival (are) connected… When you’re writing poetry… part of poetry is the craft… rules (to be understood) in a variety of contexts… (Craft is…) a necessary but not sufficient condition. You’re also… experiencing your mind, at a very deep level. And that mind as you experience it more deeply, is not in a vacuum… It’s now and here… rooted in the socio-economic and ecological conditions that make it possible. And participating in… the spiritual exercise of these postcards, is already entering into… a deep bioregional awakening and conversion. In a way we’re trying for something like a spiritual revolution, and that poetry is not just an interesting thing that you can do, if you like. It’s a fundamental exercise of being here in a less harmful way… it’s a deep ahimsa, a deep practice of non-harming and cultivation. And so, it’s all connected… And… our ambition is… trying to have a mind that would be capable, of being in this place in a better way… We’re going to live or die, by how we come down on these issues going forward.

































