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
Celebrate Cascadia Day THIS WEEKEND!
May 18 is Cascadia Day and the anniversary of the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. On Cascadia Day, we celebrate the Cascadia bioregion in all of...
THANK YOU for Giving!
THANK YOU from the bottom our hearts for donating to Cascadia Poetics Lab for GIVE BIG 2025! With your help, we were able to raise $5,987 to assist...
Denny Stern: Taiwan Etudes
From Postcard Poet Denny Stern: Taiwan Etudes Series Visiting Taipei in March we stumbled upon a post card intensive solo exhibit by Taiwanese...
Cascadia Poetics Lab in Schools
In March of 2025, Cascadia Poetics Lab founding director Paul E. Nelson was a guest speaker and workshop facilitator at Jackson High School in...
Give BIG PPF & Your Postcard Testimonials!
Support Cascadia Poetics Lab and Poetry Postcard Fest May 6-7 Thank you for being a postcard poet! We are gearing up for another summer of postcards...
Postcard Reflections by Zach Charles
From PPF committee member Zach Charles: I recently had the privilege and honor to interview Paul E Nelson, Founder of the Cascadia Poetics Lab and...
CPF8 Cascadian Zen Vol. II Reading VIDEO
Cascadian Zen Vol. II at the 8th Cascadia Poetry Festival On November 2, 2024, we celebrated the publication of Cascadian Zen Vol. II by Watershed...
Give BIG to Cascadia Poetics Lab May 6-7!
Give Big to Cascadia Poetics Lab May 6-7! Celebrate Give Big 2025 by donating to Cascadia Poetics Lab! Cascadia Poetics Lab was established in 1993...
Postcards in Rainier Beach
Happy spring! We're gearing up for another exciting summer of postcard poetry, and have some great opportunities for connecting with postcard poets...
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
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...
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.
Peter Levitt on Translating Cold Mountain
The latest and perhaps most complete translation of Han Shan has been done by Levitt in collaboration with Kazuaki Tanahashi and published by Shambhala Press.
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:12:47 — 100.0MB)
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.
































