Cascadia Poetics LAB
Empowering people to practice poetry & deepen connections to place, self & the present moment.
We believe that poetry is the nexus at which self-knowledge, bioregionalism and expansive creativity converge. Cascadia Poetics Lab is a vibrant community whose workshops, festivals, and opportunities for connection can open the door to transformative experiences.
Poet, translator, editor, Zen Buddhist, co-founder of Copper Canyon Press, and activist for Poets Against (the)War, Sam Hamill devoted his whole life to the practice of writing poetry. The following topics are foundational for this generative workshop: how ancient poetic traditions still define quality poetry, the Beat poets, the long poetic sequence, poetry as political, and the role of reflection and emotion. Facilitator Katie Sarah Zale is writing a biography on Hamill’s life and legacy.
Saturdays 2-4:00 PM Pacific Time
February 8 – March 8, 2025
Sam Hamill’s Narrow Road to the Interior
Sam Hamill’s Narrow Road to the Interior
Poet, translator, editor, Zen Buddhist, co-founder of Copper Canyon Press, and activist for Poets Against (the)War, Sam Hamill devoted his whole life to the practice of writing poetry. The following topics are foundational for this generative workshop: how ancient poetic traditions still define quality poetry, the Beat poets, the long poetic sequence, poetry as political, and the role of reflection and emotion. Facilitator Katie Sarah Zale is writing a biography on Hamill’s life and legacy.
Saturdays 2-4:00 PM Pacific Time
February 8 – March 8, 2025
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.
This lab will focus on writing strategies, applicable for poetry or prose, for breaking the spell that objectifies and cuts us off from the earth and from place and all the living beings that we (often) obliviously live in relationship with. We’ll do that by intentionally widening the socially-imposed conventions of “normal” perception via some minor alterations to our daily writing practices.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
February 23 – March 23, 2025
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.
This lab will focus on writing strategies, applicable for poetry or prose, for breaking the spell that objectifies and cuts us off from the earth and from place and all the living beings that we (often) obliviously live in relationship with. We’ll do that by intentionally widening the socially-imposed conventions of “normal” perception via some minor alterations to our daily writing practices.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
February 23 – March 23, 2025
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
CPF7 Eco-Poetics Panel Video
Watch the Cascadia Poetry Festival 7 Eco-Poetics Panel! On Saturday, October 7, 2023, we held the Eco-Poetics talk concurrently with Tess Gallagher's "Simulating the Satori Moment in Poems"...
CPF7 Poetics of De-Colonial Cascadia Video
Watch the CPF7 Poetics of De-Colonial Cascadia Video! On Saturday, October 7, 2023, we followed the Empty Bowl Press panel with a panel on the Poetics of De-Colonial Cascadia. This panel was...
Cascadian Zen Mini Tour
SEATTLE, WA, December 05, 2023 -- Seattle-based poetry nonprofit Cascadia Poetics Lab is engaged in multiple celebrations throughout the Cascadia bioregion to celebrate the release of their poetry...
Robert Bringhurst The Ridge (Interview) Pt. 1
I had the good fortune to travel to Quadra Island for a Saturday, 21, October, 2023 reading of The Ridge, the new long poem by Robert Bringhurst. To see Robert in his small town setting was an...
CPF7 Empty Bowl Panel Video
Watch the CPF7 Empty Bowl Press Panel! On Saturday, October 7, 2023, we opened our second day of the 7th Cascadia Poetry Festival with an invocation by Jason Wirth. This was followed by panel on...
Elliott Bay Book Company Cascadian Zen Reading
We are delighted as all get out to be able to present Cascadian Zen at the legendary Seattle independent bookstore Elliott Bay Book Company, Monday, December 7pm (sharp) at 1521 Tenth Avenue in...
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
Cecil Giscombe Interview
Attending a memorial always has its share of grief. Some memorials more than others. The life of Barry McKinnon was celebrated in Prince George, British Columbia, Saturday, June 22, 2024. (I will...
Ina’s Fest Preparation
The Poetry Postcard Fest is beginning soon! Finalized lists of the people we’re trading postcard poems with will be distributed starting this week. And each of us are preparing in our own way: those...
Judy Kleinberg on Captain Who?
Captain who??? As you may have noticed, there’s a new term in the Poetry Postcard Fest glossary for 2024: List Captain. Like many grassroots organizations that grow organically, the annual Fest...
John Tanner on Richard Brautigan
John Tanner on Richard Brautigan and How To Make an America
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:05:31 — 90.0MB)
Poetry Postcard Fest
An annual 56 day self-guided workshop in spontaneous composition and community-building.
Poetry Postcard Fest
An annual 56 day self-guided workshop in spontaneous composition and community-building.
Thank you
for an enormously sucessful 8th Cascadia Poetry Festival! Make plans for Cascadia Poetry Festival 9 at the Hugo House and other venues October 3, 4, and 5, 2025.
Thank You to Our Partners and Alliances:
!
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.