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
CPF9 Kubota Garden Reading VIDEO!
CPF9 Kubota Garden Reading On October 12, 2025, we began the last day of the 9th Cascadia Poetry Festival with a reading at Kubota Garden. We...
Postcard Poetry Group
Join the Postcard Poetry Group! Can't wait until the next PPF to start sending postcard poetry? Join the postcard poetry group! Postcard poet...
Cascadia Poetics Lab Gift Guide!
Happy holidays and happy upcoming winter solstice! We hope everyone has been able to stay safe during the cold and wet weather and enjoy a peaceful...
Communal Reading of Midwinter Day on Dec. 21!
Communal reading of Bernadette Mayer's Midwinter Day On December 21st, 2025 at Common Objects in Seattle (2601 1st Ave), celebrate the winter...
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...
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 Poetics of Cascadian Land and Water VIDEOS!
The Poetics of Cascadian Land and Water Curriculum Available NOW! The Poetics of Cascadian Land and Water workshop facilitated by poet Harold...
Bill Barillas on Theodore Roethke
In this edition of Cascadian Prophets, we hear Bill Barillas on Theodore Roethke. Bill Barillas is the editor of A Field Guide to the Poetry of...
Support the Families of Tyjon Stewart and Traveiah Houfmuse
Support the Families of Tyjon Stewart and Traveiah Houfmuse In late January, 2026, Rainier Beach teens Tyjon Stewart and Traveiah Houfmuse were...
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.
Jan 2, 2026 Interview with Cornelius Eady on Proof
You’d expect poetry to be part of an event inaugurating such a figure and that the poem offered for the occasion would be bland, written by a committee, or full of platitudes, but the poem delivered yesterday matched perfectly the tone of a campaign that appears to be built on mutual respect, vision, human rights and empathy.
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:22 — 50.0MB)
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.