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
Thank You 4Culture
Cascadia Poetics LAB Expresses Appreciation to 4Culture for Doors Open Sustained Support Funding Grant “It’s a home run for culture in this...
Spring Thoughts
From PPF Committee member Ina Roy-Faderman: in the northern hemisphere, we’re getting more sunshine. while Tennyson (bless him)* described spring as...
Upcoming Winter in America (Again Events!
Join us for upcoming Winter in America (Again events in Cascadia and beyond! Inter Act Spoken Word Open Mic Inter Act Spoken Word Open Mic at Satori...
Launch Party for The Outside by Matt Trease
Launch Party for The Outside by Matt Trease, Hosted by the Theosophical Society Seattle Library Join us on April 12, 2025 at 5 P.M. PST at the...
Interview with Paul Nelson on the Poetry Postcard Fest
If you were to visit cascadiapoeticslab.org and click to the Poetry Postcard Fest page, you’d find the following blurb. “The Poetry Postcard Fest is...
Winter in America (Again AWP Event
On March 27, 2025, Winter in America (Again was featured at an off-site AWP reading at Cal State Los Angeles! Co-editors Paul Nelson, Roxi Power and...
CPF8 Wilson’s Bowl Panel Video
On the second day of the 8th Cascadia Poetry Festival on Saturday, November 2, 2024 we continued with a panel exploring Wilson's Bowl and the work...
What Happened to August?
From PPF Committee member Judy Kleinberg: If you’ve ever changed your name, you will appreciate how difficult it is to get rid of your previous...
Disposable Parts part 2: Launch Party
On Wednesday, February 26, I had a great time at Baba Yaga in Pioneer Square, Seattle celebrating the launch of Disposable Parts second edition. It...
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)
Daysong Workshops 2026
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
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...
Poetry Postcard Fest 2026
Early Bird Registration
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.
Writing Resistance: Winter in America (Again Contributors
Four contributors to Winter in America (Again discuss how they respond as writers without resorting to rhetoric or invective. The outrages, for any person of conscience in the United States in the trump 2.0 era, almost come hourly. Many warned of a constitutional crisis were we to find ourselves in this situation. Disappearing non-violent citizens and tourists to for-profit gulags while key cabinet members demonstrate no familiarity with the concept of Habeas Corpus ought to tell you something.
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download ()
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
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.