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
454. Phebe Davidson, Westminster, SC – Berber Works the Wood
(Click here for audio)
Postcard Poems as Peace Process
“There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without...
453. Bridget Nutting, Vancouver, WA – Put a Berber on it
(Click here for audio)
452. Richelle Selig, Olympia, WA – Berber in Cascadia
(Click here for audio)
451. Ruby Kane, Oakland, CA – Too Seedy
(Click here for audio)
450. Karen Lee Lewis, East Amherst, NY – Masterful Silence
(Click here for audio)
449. Denise Calvetti Michaels, Kirkland, WA – P.E.D. Scandal (2)
(Click here for audio)
448. Dean Pfaender, Forest Grove, OR – P.E.D. Scandal
(Click here for audio)
447. Jacqueline Murray, Pittsburg, KS – Certain Snorts (Nasturtium)
(Click here for audio.)
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
Postcards From Mapes Creek
Postcards From Mapes Creek Join us next to Mapes Creek at 4:30 Sunday, July 14, 2024, as Tim Mateer, of Austin, TX, Abhaya Thomas of Portland, OR,...
31 Days Event in Ellensburg, WA
Inland Poetry Presents: 31 Days Join Inland Poetry in Ellensburg, WA on Saturday July 20, 2024 from 4-6 PM for a postcard poetry event! Poets...
Colleen Hein: Getting Ready for Poetry Postcard Fest
Getting Ready for Poetry Postcard Fest From Postcard Poet Colleen Hein: I’m simultaneously nervous and excited to send postcard poems to thirty-one...
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.
Carletta Carrington Wilson Interview from 2011
A 2011 interview with Seattle poet and fiber artist Carletta Carrington Wilson conducted by Paul E Nelson. They talked about Wilson’s poetry, filled with Garcia Lorca’s notion of duende, what first drew her to poetry (or how poetry called her in elementary school) about how her work reflects her study of slavery and some of her own work which haunts her and which comes from the voice of a person who was enslaved. She calls it the “history of the disappeared.”
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:41 — 61.4MB)
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.