I Want to Write a Poem (But Don’t Know How): A Cascadia 2050 workshop
On Saturday, June 27, from 3 – 5pm, Cascadia 2050 will be hosting a workshop titled: I Want to Write a Poem (But Don’t Know How). Cost: free, suggested donation $25. Sign up here.
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
Interview with Mary Norbert Körte
Open the anthology Women of the Beat Generation to page 256 and read the words of Brother Antoninus, William Everson, who said, "A series of women...
Postcards at yəhaw̓’ (Indigenous Creatives Collective) in Rainier Beach
Our next postcard activation is Wednesday, April 1 at 6pm at yəhaw̓, Two seasoned postcard poets, Zach Charles and your humble narrator will talk...
Rainier Beach Arts Roundtable
In partnership with the Rainier Beach Action Coalition, the Cascadia Poetics Lab is initiating a neighborhood arts roundtable to increase the...
Rain Shadow Poetics Lab Society
The Rain Shadow Poetics Lab Society is building on the momentum of last August's events in Cumberland, BC with a workshop by Sharon Thesen and...
Lorin Medley On the Way to Kluusms
On the Way to Kluusms is the first poetry chapbook to be published by Watershed Press, a bioregional press based in Seattle, but with strong...
Bob Pyle and Jim Dott in Seattle
Two Cascadian Zen poets from central Cascadia are in Seattle, Friday, March 20, 2026, at 6:30 at Arundel Books. You can listen to our 2024 interview...
Volunteers Need for Postcard Activations + CPL News
Dear CPL Fan. I trust you & yours are well in these chaotic times. When I read that Chinese astrology refers to The Year of the Fire Horse...
Watch A POET at SIFF Cinemas 3/6-3/9!
Watch A Poet, directed by Columbian director Simón Mesa Soto, THIS WEEKEND at SIFF Film Center in Seattle! We are grateful to have received a coupon...
Rainier Beach Poetry Postcard Activations
To create greater awareness of the 20th year of the Poetry Postcard Fest AND greater awareness of parks in Seattle's Rainier Beach neighborhood AND...
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
Every Death Hurts (Josh Massey on Barry McKinnon)
I met Barry McKinnon at a Gwillim Lake Writing Retreat near Tumbler Ridge in 2008. This is north of Prince George, maybe six hours west of Edmonton...
I Want to Write a Poem (But Don’t Know How): A Cascadia 2050 workshop
On Saturday, June 27, from 3 - 5pm, Cascadia 2050 will be hosting a workshop titled: I Want to Write a Poem (But Don't Know How). Cost: free,...
Cascadia 2050 interview with Julie Masters
This year the Poetry Postcard Fest celebrates its 20th anniversary. From the fest many a creative project has spawned, and one recent example of...
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.
Zhang Er on First Mountain
Sam Hamill wrote in his final book blurb: “Zhang Er brings us startling ‘burial ground poems’ from Chinese that are striking in their perspective and elegant in style and presentation. They represent a poetic sensibility that is unique and often profound, and I read them with great surprise and gratitude.”
Zhang Er, a poet and opera librettist from Beijing, is the author of many books of poetry in Chinese, 2017’s Closest to You, also Verses on Bird and So Translating Rivers and Cities. She has co-edited Another Kind of Nation: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry and her opera libretti in English include Moon in the Mirror and Fiery Jade: Cai Yan. In this April 2019 interview she discussed her book First Mountain (Zephyr Press), co-translated from her original Chinese with Joseph Donahue.
To hear the original audio of this interview, click here.
Check out more of what the Lab does here, and listen to more current and archival podcasts on Spotify or on our website.
To get original poetry right in your mailbox this summer, check out the Poetry Postcard Fest.
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:13 — 81.3MB)
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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.