Poetry Postcard Fest
An annual 56 day self-guided workshop in spontaneous composition and community-building.
Poetry Postcard Fest
An annual 56 day self-guided workshop in spontaneous composition and community-building.
A five week online (Zoom) workshop for first-time and continuing participants in the online 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 the first of three, five week courses to happen before next postcard season. Click to learn more.
Thursdays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
January 9 – February 6, 2025
Poetics As Cosmology Workshop
Poetics As Cosmology Workshop
A five week online (Zoom) workshop for first-time and continuing participants in the online 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 the first of three, five week courses to happen before next postcard season. Click to learn more.
Thursdays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
January 9 – February 6, 2025
Life as Rehearsal for the Poem Workshop
A five week online (Zoom) workshop for first-time and continuing participants in the online 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 the first of three, five week courses to happen before next postcard season. Click to learn more.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
January 5 – February 2, 2025
Life as Rehearsal for the Poem Workshop
A five week online (Zoom) workshop for first-time and continuing participants in the online 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 the first of three, five week courses to happen before next postcard season. Click to learn more.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
January 5 – February 2, 2025
Poet, translator, editor, Zen Buddhist, co-founder of Copper Canyon Press, and activist for Poets Against (the)War, Sam Hamill devoted his whole life to the practice of writing poetry. The following topics are foundational for this generative workshop: how ancient poetic traditions still define quality poetry, the Beat poets, the long poetic sequence, poetry as political, and the role of reflection and emotion. Facilitator Katie Sarah Zale is writing a biography on Hamill’s life and legacy.
Saturdays 2-4:00 PM Pacific Time
February 8 – March 8, 2025
Sam Hamill’s Narrow Road to the Interior
Sam Hamill’s Narrow Road to the Interior
Poet, translator, editor, Zen Buddhist, co-founder of Copper Canyon Press, and activist for Poets Against (the)War, Sam Hamill devoted his whole life to the practice of writing poetry. The following topics are foundational for this generative workshop: how ancient poetic traditions still define quality poetry, the Beat poets, the long poetic sequence, poetry as political, and the role of reflection and emotion. Facilitator Katie Sarah Zale is writing a biography on Hamill’s life and legacy.
Saturdays 2-4:00 PM Pacific Time
February 8 – March 8, 2025
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.
This lab will focus on writing strategies, applicable for poetry or prose, for breaking the spell that objectifies and cuts us off from the earth and from place and all the living beings that we (often) obliviously live in relationship with. We’ll do that by intentionally widening the socially-imposed conventions of “normal” perception via some minor alterations to our daily writing practices.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
February 23 – March 23, 2025
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.
This lab will focus on writing strategies, applicable for poetry or prose, for breaking the spell that objectifies and cuts us off from the earth and from place and all the living beings that we (often) obliviously live in relationship with. We’ll do that by intentionally widening the socially-imposed conventions of “normal” perception via some minor alterations to our daily writing practices.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
February 23 – March 23, 2025
Poetry Postcard Fest News
Poetry Postcard Fest Interviews
Now that our post-Poetry Postcard Fest workshop is over and has received some rave reviews (see THIS and also THIS) we're ready now for another round of interviews with Poetry Postcard Fest...
Diane di Prima (1934-2020)
Poetry Postcard Fest poet Margaret Mayer suggested linking my "Poet's Obituary" for Diane di Prima here on the Poetry Postcard Fest site and I figured it was a good idea because Diane was a postcard...
Mary Beth Frezon POPO2020 Afterword
Longtime Poetry Postcard Fest participant Mary Beth Frezon checks in with thoughts about her POPO2020 process: Excerpt: I’d been home since March 4, the first couple weeks of that with some illness....
Melanie Weldon-Soiset POPO2020 Afterword
A sweet take on her own POPO2020 participation comes to us from the blog of Melanie Weldon-Soiset: One excerpt: Sending postcards served as a practice of remembrance. The Poetry Postcard Fest gave...
Andrew Bell POPO2020 Afterword
AFTERWORD on the experience of August Poetry Postcard Fest 2020 (by Andrew Bell) Somehow, through no fault of anyone’s, but perhaps the tyranny of distance, I had drifted out of the Poetry Postcard...
Poetry Postcard Fest Love
Hi, Paul— I shared back in July that my dad died, and you posted that on the PoPo website. As a result, I was showered with love and kindness from so many PoPo folks that it overwhelmed me. I...
Voluntary Hallucinations
I'm delighted to have a postcard poem in the new anthology I Sing the Salmon Home. It's a book of poems by Washington state poets, curated by the last state Poet Laureate (and Lummi Tribal member...
Joanna Thomas dear-so-and-so Postcard Exhibit
Longtime postcarder Joanna Thomas is having an exhibition of 40 or so of her "dear-so-and-so" postcards just in time for her 75th birthday! Happy Birthday Joey! Check it out: Earlybird registration...
The Cards I Got 2022
It does not feel like fall in Seattle where it has rained .5 inches in the last 120 days. Needless to say the air quality is horrid and I am still thinking it is summer. I guess I am not too late...
How the Poetry Postcard Fest Works
Abhaya Thomas Postcard
How the Poetry Postcard Fest Works
Abhaya Thomas Postcard