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 2-5:00 PM Pacific Time
April 3 – May 1, 2025
Poetics As Cosmology Spring 2025
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 2-5:00 PM Pacific Time
April 3 – May 1, 2025
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 2-5:00 PM Pacific Time
April 6 – May 4, 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 2-5:00 PM Pacific Time
April 6 – May 4, 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
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
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
#APPF12 (2018) Afterword
I did not get a chance to write about my experience with the 12th Poetry Postcard Fest yesterday as I was leaving Ian, Jennifer and Gavia Boyden and their home on San Juan Island with my daughter...
Six Postcards
Bhakti and I got back from an overnight sojourn to THE MULTIVERSE on San Juan Island yesterday. We went to the community/arts spot Ian, Jennifer and Gavia Boyden have created to showcase art and...
2018 Postcard Participation
293 people are registered for the 12th Poetry Postcard Fest in 2018. Included are participants from Alberta (1), Alabama (9), Arkansas (1), Arizona (1), British Columbia (1), California (26),...
Postcard Impersonality
Reading Mark Gonnerman's book A Sense of the Whole: Reading Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End I came to Tim Dean's essay on The Other Voice. In the essay he states that in his 40 year...
Postcards in the Park
Two editors of 56 Days of August and two contributors gathered yesterday at the annual Poets in the Park event in Redmond, Washington. Ina Roy-Faderman, Your Humble Narrator, Joanna Thomas and Matt...
Epistolary Poetry by Sam Hamill
I have been getting caught up on some of Sam Hamill's work since his death back in April. Last night reading from his 1981 book of "casual essays" or "over-the-shoulder" glances he titled At Home in...
Mary Beth Frezon PPF Afterword
Thank you Mary Beth Frezon, veteran postcarder, for these wise words: Yes I’m one of those people who mark your card as arrived when it does but I don’t worry about it if it doesn’t. I’m grateful...
Alice Van Mill 2021 PPF Afterword
I enjoyed participating in the poetry festival. Although I only have received 9 poems so far, I can see the thoughtfulness in them. I will be looking forward to receiving more in the mail. I have...
Judy Kleinberg 2021 PPF Afterword
Longtime postcard poet and co-editor of 56 Days of August Judy Kleinberg has published her 2021 Poetry Postcard Fest afterword: I never know quite when it’s over — when all of the postcards I’m...
How the Poetry Postcard Fest Works
Abhaya Thomas Postcard
How the Poetry Postcard Fest Works
Abhaya Thomas Postcard