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
CPL Featured Poet – Logan Garner
CPL Featured Poets To continue to extend our gratitude to the generosity of our community, Cascadia Poetics Lab has decided to feature the work of...
Thom Hartmann on the theft of Human Rights via corporate personhood
In this interview with Thom Hartmann on the theft of human rights via corporate personhood and its history, he discussed the East India Company, the...
Daysong Workshop Jan. 22 & 25 VIDEO
Daysong Workshop Video On January 22, 2026, we hosted the first of two workshops focused on the Daysong, an exercise in dedicating an entire day to...
What Am I Of? by Sue Diewert
Sue Diewert, a poet and CPL supporter, followed the What Am I Of? poetry exercise to write the poem below. Thank you so much for sharing, Sue! Want...
Daysong Workshops THIS WEEK!
Daysong Workshops This Week! Join us for online workshops focusing on the Daysong practice of writing a poem for an entire day this Thursday,...
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!...
A Tribute to Renee Nicole Good by Cornelius Eady
In wake of the death of Renee Nicole Good, the 37-year old poet, wife and mother shot and killed by ICE in Minneapolis last week, poet Cornelius...
Cascadia Poetics LAB Blog
Carletta Carrington Wilson: Object Lessons
On view at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art this summer is Carletta Carrington Wilson is Object Lessons. Poet/Fabric Artist/Bookmaker Carletta...
An Essay on CPL by Diana Elser
I came across this in my journal today. (See below.) Now that Diana Elser has left the board to focus on her writing, I thought it was an excellent...
CPL @ ScribFest
The Cascadia Poetics Lab is delighted to participate in ScribFest, June 20 & 21, 2026, at Town Hall. From the ScribLab website: "ScribFest...
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.
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 poets emerged in San Francisco who identified with the establish Beat Poets even as they challenged them on their grounds, including Joanne Kyger and Mary Norbert Körte. Of these, the career of Mary Norbert Körte most sharply defines the historic tension between the women of service and the women of passion. The strongest woman poet to emerge in the west, she became a student of Lew Welch, cracking convention within the bastion of the religious order.” Raised in a devout family, joining the convent right out of high school in 1952, and stunned by 2 events in the tumultuous 1960s, Mary Norbert Körte continued to make striking poems deeply connected to the land where she lived in extreme southern Cascadia, in a town called Willets, California, until she passed away in 2022.
To hear the original audio from 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: 40:46 — 56.0MB)
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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.