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
Poet Spotlight: Tess Gallagher
Among the many influential Cascadian poets that we are excited to welcome to the 7th Cascadia Poetry Festival on October 6-8 is the award winning Port Angeles poet and short story writer Tess...
Announcing the Poetry Postcard Fest Project Board
Introducing the Poetry Postcard Fest Project Board, a committee of the Cascadia Poetics Lab dedicated to improving the experience of the annual Poetry Postcard Fest and expanding participation....
Riding the FireWind
Top photo: Mckenzie River Fire, photo by Marcus Kauffman, Oregon Dept of Forestry, 9/8/20 —David McCloskey, © Sept 8, 2020 Prologue BC is burning, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, N California...
Riding the FireWind Raining Ash at the Oregon Coast Photos
Top photo: Smoke Shrouded Devil's Elbow SP, near Florence, Oregon Coast, photo by David McCloskey. This is one of the most beloved places on the wild Oregon Coast–on the bluff to the right (out of...
WHULGE: The Wheel of Waters
Image excerpted from McCloskey's map "The Ish River-Lillooet Country with The Salish Sea," 2021, available with its companion map of "Cascadia: A Great Green Land," 2023, from...
Interview with Stephen Thomas, Part 1
Before moving to Europe, Auburn, Washington native Stephen Thomas was quite active in the Seattle literary scene. He came back to Seattle (& other parts of the U.S.) to read from his new book...
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
Mapes Creek Multicultural Blessing April 27 9am
Since moving the world headquarters of the Cascadia Poetics Lab to Rainier Beach in July 2017, I have become enamored with Mapes Creek, or what the First People of this place called dxʷwuqʷəb -...
Poetry and Posole Fundraiser Event!
Celebrate Cascadia Day at our Poetry and Posole Fundraiser! On May 18, celebrate the power of the natural world and the magnificence of the Cascadia bioregion with us! In honor of the eruption of...
Upcoming Cascadian Zen Mini Tour!
Upcoming Cascadian Zen Events! The editors of Cascadian Zen Vol. I Paul Nelson, Adelia MacWilliam and Dr. Jason Wirth are embarking on another mini tour of readings within Cascadia. The first...
Heavy Lifting Art Book (Feilcia Rice, Theresa Whitehill)
It is a collaboration that’s a book, but not a book that you’d bring to bed with you before turning the lights out. It’s also been described as...
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.