This will be the third workshop aiming to demystify the process of writing poetry, and, as the CPL and Cascadia 2050 missions say, “empower people to practice poetry…”
Click this link for more information about the workshop I Want to Write a Poem (But Don’t Know How)
Saturday December 12, 2026, 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
Cost: free, suggested donation $25.
I Want to Write a Poem (But Don’t Know How): A Cascadia 2050 workshop
This will be the third workshop aiming to demystify the process of writing poetry, and, as the CPL and Cascadia 2050 missions say, “empower people to practice poetry…”
Click this link for more information about the workshop I Want to Write a Poem (But Don’t Know How)
Saturday December 12, 2026, 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
Cost: free, suggested donation $25.
Explore practices that help keep consciousness attuned to the realities of the world – and discover how poetry can emerge from that depth. In this five-week workshop, Paul E. Nelson guides participants through readings, interviews, journaling, and writing exercise rooted in the Cascadia bioregion. All levels are welcome; openness and a commitment to the practice are all that’s required.
Learn more about Poetry as Neuro-Resilience →
Suggested donation: $130–$275
Saturday Cohort
Saturdays 9-11 AM Pacific Time
November 21, 2026 – December 19, 2026
Sunday Cohort
Sundays 3-5 PM Pacific Time
November 22, 2026 – December 20, 2026
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
CPF9 Cascadia Mono Poem VIDEO!
Cascadia Mono Poem Reading On October 11, 2025, we closed the second day of the 9th Cascadia Poetry Festival with a mono poem. Poets read original...
Tess Gallagher on Surrounded by Weasels and Josie Gray
To preserve a bit of one's art is a true act of love, even if the book of stories that comes out is titled Surrounded by Weasels: Stories from the...
Exercise as a Prerequisite to Creativity – Sue Diewert on PPF
PPF 2025 poet Sue Diewert published a piece on the Poetry Postcard Fest in Sage-ing: The Journal of Creative Aging! You can read Sue's piece and see...
Zach Charles CPL Letter of Recommendation
In celebration of winning a Humanities Washington Award, we are sharing the letters of support and recommendation provided by CPL staff and...
Support the CPL Annual Fund for Giving Tuesday!
Support CPL for Giving Tuesday! It's that time of year again! As the weather chills and the days grow shorter, it is vital to soak in every moment...
CPF9 Saturday Afternoon Reading VIDEO!
CPF9 Saturday Afternoon Reading On October 11, 2025, we continued he 9th Cascadia Poetry Festival with an afternoon reading. Matt Trease facilitated...
Support the Poetry Postcard Fest!
Support PPF on Giving Tuesday! Thank you for supporting Cascadia Poetics Lab and the Poetry Postcard Fest! Thanks to you, an estimated 18,000...
Tim Mateer Postcard Workshop VIDEO
On November 22, 2025, Cascadia Poetics Lab hosted an online workshop with longtime postcard poet Tim Mateer for early registrants of the 2026 Poetry...
Winter in America (Still Workshop VIDEO!
Your Blues Ain't Mine Workshop Video On November 16, 2025, Paul Nelson, Roxi Power and allia abdullah-matta, three of eight Winter in America (Again...
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
Postcarding & DaySinging Workshop Video
We had a full house at the Flag Day 2026 online workshop for poets interested in making the most out of the summer Poetry Postcard Fest and the end...
Interview with Finn Menzies
This interview with Finn Menzies is an archival interview from November, 2017. Finn Menzies is an out transgender teacher in Seattle, WA. His work...
Postcards from Chaos
There are three weeks before the 20th Poetry Postcard Fest begins. Cumberland, BC and Cortes Island postcarder Scott Lawrance sends an article from...
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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.
Deborah Poe on “flagging the apocalypse pageantry”
How does one make literary art about this time in history that avoids rhetoric and facile political positioning in this era of the spectacle? How does one avoid being consumed by the simultaneous collapse of so many systems — some being eviscerated by people in positions designed to protect such systems? Deborah Poe has some idea based on her submission to the upcoming anthology Winter in America (Still.
Deborah is the author of several books of poetry including keep, Elements, and Our Parenthetical Ontology, as well as a novella in verse, Hélène. Her visual works–video poems and handmade book objects–have been exhibited throughout the US. She lives on stolen Coast Salish land, specifically the ancestral homeland of the Duwamish, Suquamish, Stillaguamish, and Muckleshoot People.
Check out more of what the Lab does here, and listen to more current and archival podcasts on Spotify or on our website.
To get original poetry right in your mailbox this summer, check out the Poetry Postcard Fest.
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:33 — 36.5MB)
In Honor of David McCloskey “The Father of Cascadia”
David McCloskey passed away on July 3. In honor of his lifetime of work to create and spread a culture that was deeply connected to the Cascadian bioregion, Cascadian Prophets, which owes more than just its name to his work, we want to share this interview from October, 2013. Find it transcribed on our website.
Listen to more current and archival podcasts on Spotify or on our website.
In Honor of David McCloskey "The Father of Cascadia"
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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.






































