Poetry Postcard Fest

An annual 56 day self-guided workshop in spontaneous composition and community-building.

Poetry Postcard Fest 2025 Event Registration Banner

Poetry Postcard Fest

An annual 56 day self-guided workshop in spontaneous composition and community-building.

Poetry Postcard Fest 2025 Event Registration Banner

How it Works

The fest is a self-guided 56 day workshop in spontaneous composition and community. Click to learn more about How it Works.

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

Poetics As Cosmology Spring 2025 Banner

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

Poetics As Cosmology Spring 2025 Banner

Life as Rehearsal for the Poem Workshop

Life as Rehearsal for the Poem Spring 2025 Banner

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.

Life as Rehearsal for the Poem Spring 2025 Banner

Thinkingwith: writing strategies for reconnecting to earth

Thinking With Workshop with Matt Trease Web Banner

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.

Click to learn more.

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.

Click to learn more.

Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
February 23 – March 23, 2025

Thinking With Workshop with Matt Trease Web Banner

Spring Thoughts

From PPF Committee member Ina Roy-Faderman: in the northern hemisphere, we’re getting more sunshine. while Tennyson (bless him)* described spring as the season where young men’s interests “lightly turns to thoughts of love,” for many of us, thoughts turn to poetry...

Interview with Paul Nelson on the Poetry Postcard Fest

Sam Hamill said “Over the past decade or so, no one has done more for poetry in the Pacific Northwest than has Paul Nelson.” With the Poetry Postcard Fest, now in its 19th year, that influence is spreading well beyond the Cascadia bioregion and all over the world. 

What Happened to August?

From PPF Committee member Judy Kleinberg: If you’ve ever changed your name, you will appreciate how difficult it is to get rid of your previous name. The Poetry Postcard Fest has been around since 2007, when Paul Nelson and Lana Ayers devised a plan for a month-long...

Postcards from Where I Have Never Been by Margaret Lee

From PPF Committee Member Margaret Lee:  Last year, my theme for the Fest was Postcards from Where I Have Never Been. I was tired of reality and ready for fiction. My 31 cards named unfamiliar or imagined places. Did I connect the picture on the front to the poem on...

Poetry Postcard Fest News

Postcards for Richard

Postcards for Richard

Caring Bridge for Richard Osler “Did you know, a quick comment can boost morale by 28.2%”— Caring Bridge Longtime Poetry Postcard Fest participant Richard Osler has been diagnosed with Stage Four...

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Ina’s Fest Preparation

Ina’s Fest Preparation

The Poetry Postcard Fest is beginning soon! Finalized lists of the people we’re trading postcard poems with will be distributed starting this week. And each of us are preparing in our own way: those...

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Judy Kleinberg on Captain Who?

Judy Kleinberg on Captain Who?

Captain who??? As you may have noticed, there’s a new term in the Poetry Postcard Fest glossary for 2024: List Captain. Like many grassroots organizations that grow organically, the annual Fest...

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Postcards From Here

Postcards From Here

Postcards From Here Cascadia Poetics Lab will be celebrating the Poetry Postcard Fest with its first in-person postcard event on July 14, 2024 at 11 A.M. PDT at the Olympic Sculpture Park in...

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Wish You Were Here (Drew Myron)

Wish You Were Here (Drew Myron)

It’s postcard season, and I’m ready! Once, a young friend went to Europe. “Send me a postcard,” I said as she departed. She arrived in the foreign country, purchased a postcard, and had no idea what...

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DaySong 2024

DaySong 2024

DaySong 2024 on September 1 The DaySong is a poem written in a 24 hour period (or the 16 or so hours you’re awake during a 24 hour period). The DaySong was originally envisioned as an attempt to...

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Zach Charles Mid ’24 PPF

Zach Charles Mid ’24 PPF

From PPF Committee Member Zach Charles: Yet again, while reflecting on the Poetry Postcard Fest, I am drawn to the way the project can reveal the power of the accident. This year, unrelated to the...

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The Poetry Postcard Fest, initiated by poets Paul Nelson and Lana Ayers in 2007, invites participants to create and send 31 original poems on postcards throughout August. The fest emphasizes spontaneity, with poems written in one take directly onto postcards for recipients worldwide. Registration opens annually on September 1, and participants receive a list of fellow poets to exchange cards with. A $15 contribution supports the Cascadia Poetics LAB, and scholarships are available. For more details and resources on postcard poetry, visit How it Works or check out related essays and wrap-ups from past participants.

How the Poetry Postcard Fest Works

Abhaya Thomas Postcard

How the Poetry Postcard Fest Works

The Poetry Postcard Fest, initiated by poets Paul Nelson and Lana Ayers in 2007, invites participants to create and send 31 original poems on postcards throughout August. The fest emphasizes spontaneity, with poems written in one take directly onto postcards for recipients worldwide. Registration opens annually on September 1, and participants receive a list of fellow poets to exchange cards with. A $15 contribution supports the Cascadia Poetics LAB, and scholarships are available. For more details and resources on postcard poetry, visit How it Works or check out related essays and wrap-ups from past participants.

Abhaya Thomas Postcard