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
On Our 30th Anniversary
Help Celebrate our 30th Anniversary! Cascadia Poetics LAB is getting ready to celebrate our 30th Anniversary on February 2, 2024! This event will...
Giving Tuesday 2023
Dear Postcard Fest Poet, Today we celebrate Giving Tuesday, the international day of giving! Giving Tuesday promotes radical generosity around the...
Giving Tuesday 2023
Dear Cascadia Poetics Lab supporters, Today we celebrate Giving Tuesday, the international day of giving! Giving Tuesday promotes radical generosity...
Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs Sociology Interview
Cascadia Poetics Lab board member Dr. Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs interview with sociology blog Sociology Group In the interview, Gutiérrez y Muhs...
Cascadian Zen to be Featured @ Winekraft & Time Enough Books
To celebrate the release of their omnibus anthology Cascadian Zen: Writings from Cascadia in the Here and Now, Vol. I, Watershed Press, the...
Success of 2023 Cascadia Poetry Festival 7
Cascadia Poetry Festival 7 This year's Cascadia Poetry Festival was a great success, thanks to participants, volunteers, sponsors. The festival...
CPF7 Friday Night Reading Video
Watch the first night of CPF7! On Friday, October 6, 2023, we opened our 7th Cascadia Poetry Festival with amazing readings from Gary Copeland...
Poetry Postcard Fest Promotes International Peace
And Understanding In this time of war, mass shooting, and animonsity. We hope that you will consider Joining Us for GivingTuesday The Global Day of...
New Review of Cascadian Zen Vol. I
Read Kirkus Review of Cascadian Zen Vol. I! Kirkus Reviews has published a review for Watershed Press' poetry anthology Cascadian Zen Vol. I, edited...
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
Postcard Poem Inspiration from Robert Duncan
Are you looking for inspiration for you next poetry postcard? Take a page from Robert Duncan, a devotee of Hilda "H.D." Doolittle and a key figure...
Interview with El Habib Louai at Desolation Peak
On the morning of Wednesday, August 14, 2013, Habib and Paul Nelson awoke before 6A and were hiking with full packs up to “Jack’s Shack." But after...
Poetry From Journalism Exercise
Poetry From Journalism Exercise The news is chaotic and constant these days, but this week we bring you an exercise that can help you harness it for...
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.
Barry McKinnon Interview (from July 2015)
Paul: You know, you moved up here and one of the first things you did as a teacher in Prince George – was it UNBC at the time when you moved here – the University of Northern British Columbia?
Barry: No, it was the College of New Caledonia.
Paul: And you were teaching English in a welding class?
BM: Yup, it was a technical school. We moved into a technical school before they built the college.
PN: And this is 1969?
BM: Yeah, 1969. But in that first year here we taught out of the high school. We’d start teaching at three in the afternoon after the high school was out, so we were a night school. We were kind of interlopers. The high school teachers thought, “oh, here are these smarty pants academics coming in and taking over the functions that we’ve provided!”
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.