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
World Meditation Day 2025 Dec. 21
Celebrate World Meditation Day on December 21, 2025! From the Art of Living Foundation: On the Longest Night, Find the Light Within The winter...
Register for Winter 2026 Workshops!
CPL Winter 2026 Workshops! Keep your poetic light shining bright during the dark winter days with Cascadia Poetics Lab workshops! We're excited to...
Gary Copeland Lilley on Raven on the Moaners’ Bench
"The first pew in the old time Black church is the Moaners' bench." - Gary Copeland Lilley Artificial intelligence and it's racist assumptions...
At First, I Was So In Love I Didn’t Think About It by Martha Clarkson
Postcard Poems by Martha Clarkson Postcard poet Martha Clarkson published some of her postcard poems from 2025 in Hobart Pulp last week!...
Veronica Martinez CPL Letter of Recommendation
Here is our final letter of recommendation in celebration of winning a Humanities Washington Award--the letter written by me, Veronica! We have...
Thank you for supporting CPL on Giving Tuesday!
We have the deepest gratitude for everyone that donated to the CPL Annual Fund and to our Giving Tuesday campaign on December 2! As we've said...
CPF9 Cascadia Mono Poem VIDEO!
Cascadia Mono Poem Reading On October 11, 2025, we closed the second day of the 9th Cascadia Poetry Festival with a mono poem. Poets read original...
Tess Gallagher on Surrounded by Weasels and Josie Gray
To preserve a bit of one's art is a true act of love, even if the book of stories that comes out is titled Surrounded by Weasels: Stories from the...
Exercise as a Prerequisite to Creativity – Sue Diewert on PPF
PPF 2025 poet Sue Diewert published a piece on the Poetry Postcard Fest in Sage-ing: The Journal of Creative Aging! You can read Sue's piece and see...
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
The Creative Weapon of Love
Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, everybody. I am writing to you today from an intersection of many identities, several of which I think bear...
CPL’s 2026 Board Retreat!
January 2 & 3, 2026, Cascadia Poetics Lab hosted a retreat for the CPL board and key volunteers at the home of board member Dr. Gabriella...
What are you of? Poetry Exercise
What Are You Of? We want to share exercises for you to continue to practice poetry in mythic ways outside of workshops and the Poetry Postcard Fest!...
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.
Trevor Carolan on Making Waves: Reading BC and PNW Literature
If artists are the antennae of the race, then the poets and writers of British Columbia are onto something that the general populace may be ready to recognize and act on. That is the West Coast of the U.S. and that of Canada has more in common with each other than with the power centers back east, Ottawa and Washington, DC, New York City and Toronto. But some go a step further in recognizing a new culture emanating from what some call Cascadia.
Trevor Carolan is one of them and if you believe the culture and literature of a nation is a critical component of any nation’s foundation, a new book he has edited begins to tell that story. Making Waves: Reading BC and Pacific Northwest Literature is that book and Trevor’s our guest. He teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Fraser Valley and had published 14 books of poetry, translation, non-fiction, fiction and anthologies.
Check out more of what the Lab does at https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/, and listen to more current and archival podcasts at https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/cascadian-prophets-podcast-2/.
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:50 — 39.6MB)
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.