Cascadia Poetry Festival 9
The Cascadia Poetry Festival is a gathering of poets and bioregionalists, exploring poetry and its connect to environmental, political, historical, and sociologica pursuits within the Cascadia bioregion.
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.
Peter Levitt on Translating Cold Mountain
The latest and perhaps most complete translation of Han Shan has been done by Levitt in collaboration with Kazuaki Tanahashi and published by Shambhala Press.
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:12:47 — 100.0MB)
Poet as Radio: Writing from Intuition
A 5-week online poetry workshop designed for folks with a wide variety of experience with poetry and with a keen interest in spirituality and the occult. This course is more than a workshop; it’s a journey into the unknown, where you’ll discover hidden messages and ideas both from within yourself and the outside world. Through chance, divination, games, and ritual, you’ll learn to trust your intuition and let your spontaneity guide your writing.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
September 7 – October 5, 2025
Poet as Radio: Writing from Intuition
A 5-week online poetry workshop designed for folks with a wide variety of experience with poetry and with a keen interest in spirituality and the occult. This course is more than a workshop; it’s a journey into the unknown, where you’ll discover hidden messages and ideas both from within yourself and the outside world. Through chance, divination, games, and ritual, you’ll learn to trust your intuition and let your spontaneity guide your writing.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
September 7 – October 5, 2025
We will read The H.D. Book together over 5 weeks. It’s a big book, so that’s a lot of reading, but he’s a joy to read, so it’s not exactly onerous. I will probably talk a bit at the beginning of each session and then open it up to the participants. I wrote the introduction. You should read it first. We can talk about that as well. The goal here is to let Duncan lead us into an encounter with the marvelous as we follow his encounter with H.D. as it led him into the depths of history, mind, and soul.
Wednesdays 5:30-7:30 PM Pacific Time
September 17 – October 15, 2025
Robert Duncan’s H.D. Book: The Roots of Modernism with Michael Boughn
Robert Duncan’s H.D. Book: The Roots of Modernism with Michael Boughn
We will read The H.D. Book together over 5 weeks. It’s a big book, so that’s a lot of reading, but he’s a joy to read, so it’s not exactly onerous. I will probably talk a bit at the beginning of each session and then open it up to the participants. I wrote the introduction. You should read it first. We can talk about that as well. The goal here is to let Duncan lead us into an encounter with the marvelous as we follow his encounter with H.D. as it led him into the depths of history, mind, and soul.
Wednesdays 5:30-7:30 PM Pacific Time
September 17 – October 15, 2025
Life as Rehearsal for the Poem and Poetics as Cosmology 2025 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 Fall 2025, we’ll explore a short history of Projective/Outside North American Poetry, focused on:
- Whitman & Dickinson
- WCW & Lorine Niedecker
- Olson and Levertov
- McClure & di Prima
- Daphne Marlatt, Brenda Hillman & Nate Mackey
Life as Rehearsal for the Poem (LARFP)
- Sundays, 3-5 PM PDT
- November 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30, 2025
Poetics as Cosmology (PAC)
- Thursdays, 3-5 PM PDT
- October 30, November 6, 13, 20, and December 4, 2025
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
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...
To AI or Not to AI (Definitely Not)
To AI or Not to AI? (Definitely not.) From Postcard Poet Kathy Paul: I’ve loved participating in the summer Poetry Postcard Fest since I first heard...
Personal Universe Deck Poetry Practice
Last week we brought you some inspiration from our 2024 Life As Rehearsal For the Poem and Poetics As Cosmology course, and this week we have...
Register for the 9th Cascadia Poetry Festival!
9th Cascadia Poetry Festival Oct. 10-12 What does it mean to be here? How does one connect more deeply to a place, and how does this manifest in...
Sharon Thesen “…off on an angle”
The 9th Cascadia Poetry Festival is happening October 10-12th, 2025 at the Rainier Beach Community Club. One of the featured poets is Sharon Thesen,...
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
Location Card-Nation Narration by Amy Friedman
From postcard poet Dr. Amy L. Friedman: Some time before I knew I’d be coming to Japan I signed up for the 2025 Cascadia Poetics Lab Poetry Postcard...
CPL Granted Community Accelerator Grant from ArtsFund
Cascadia Poetics Lab is excited to share that we are a recipient of a 2025 Community Accelerator Grant Fund by Allen Family Philanthropies and...
Poetry Postcard Fest ’25 Wrap Up ZoomParty
Join us on Zoom on Saturday, September 6 for the Poetry Postcard Fest '25 Wrap Up ZoomParty. We will meet at 2 pm PST and chat for 2 hours about our...
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.
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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.