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
J.I. Kleinberg: A Postcard Success Story
From PPF board member J.I. Kleinberg: Back in 2017, for reasons I cannot now recall, I found myself writing postcard poems about a scarecrow. I'd been involved in the Postcard Fest since 2011, but...
Stephen Thomas Interview Part 2
We present the second half of our July 4, 2023 interview with former Seattle poet Stephen Thomas. He talked about his time in Seattle, his struggle with addictions, moving to Europe and his latest...
Poet Spotlight: Jan Zwicky
We are delighted to have the talented and award-winning Canadian poet, philosopher, author and musician Jan Zwicky participating at our 7th Cascadia Poetry Festival this upcoming October 6-8! Jan...
Poet Spotlight: Robert Bringhurst
One of the outstanding minds residing in the Cascadia bioregion that we will be featured at the 7th Cascadia Poetry Festival is Robert Bringhurst, one of Canada's most revered poets and an...
2024 POSTCARD FEST REGISTRATION IS OPEN
The 2023 Poetry Postcard Fest is over & ends with the second largest participation in 17 years. See stats here. We also added a project board to oversee the fest and improve the experience for...
2024 POSTCARD FEST REGISTRATION IS OPEN
The 2023 Poetry Postcard Fest is over & ends with the second largest participation in 17 years. See stats here. From The Fun Matters! “I keep signing up for the Poetry Postcard Fest every year,...
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
Poetry & Posole
Poetry and Posole Cascadia Day Celebrate the power of the natural world and the magnificence of the Cascadia bioregion with us on Cascadia Day, May 18th! In honor of the anniversary of the eruption...
Mapes Creek Blessing
I think the first notion of land healing rituals came to me we hosted Diane di Prima at the old NW Spokenword Lab in Auburn November 1999. It might have been walking along the Stuck River when Diane...
Cascadian Zen Audio from Vancouver Reading
The Cascadian Zen editors are on the road again. This Tuesday, (APR 30, 2024) at 6pm, we close out National Poetry Month in style with a reading at Broadway Books in Portland. Details here:...
Rescue and Revival of a Seattle Legend: Carletta Carrington Wilson Interprets James Washington Jr.
Carletta Carrington Wilson discusses Poem of Stone & Bone in honor of James W. Washington Jr.
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:30 — )
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.