Pacific Rim Poetics
(a SPLAB Workshop Preview
Saturday, October 30, 2010, 12N-3P)
Basho
People in the rest of the U.S. and in Europe have difficulty in adjusting to the fact that the Pacific Coast of America faces the Far East, culturally as well as geographically… The residents of California, Oregon, and Washington are as likely to travel across the Pacific as across the continent and the Atlantic.
– Kenneth Rexroth
What does it mean to be a West Coast poet? Or to broaden the view, a Pacific Rim poet? In this course, we’ll explore innovative (& classic) Pacific Rim poetics. Basho’s Haibun, Sei Shonagon’s list poems, the serial poems of Jack Spicer, Nathaniel Mackey and Robin Blaser and Lissa Wolsak’s phosphorus of the mystery. Class time will be given to readings (& listenings) of work, as well as writing exercises and discussion. Get a better understanding of your place as a poet in this corner of the world.
Lissa Wolsak Marqueed
Paul Nelson: Founder of SPLAB (SPokenword LAB). Author: Organic Poetry (essays, Oct. ‘08, VDM Verlag, Germany) & a serial poem re-enacting the history of Auburn, WA, A Time Before Slaughter (Oct. ’09, Apprentice House). Interviewed: Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Sam Hamill, Robin Blaser, Eileen Myles, Jerome Rothenberg & others. M.A.: Lesley
Paul Nelson in Brussels, May 2010
University. Shortlisted for the Stranger Genius Award in Literature, 2010.
The workshop happens Saturday, October 30, 2010, from 12N – 3PM at SPLAB, 3528 S. Ferdinand, but enter in back, on Edmunds. Suggested donation $20, students $10, but no one will be turned away.
Robin Blaser
Pacific Rim
