Laura Simms
Dear Friends,
The need for sharing our stories is now. Take time out of busyness and internet to reach beyond the boundaries of our expectations and habits. Dwell in deep listening, offer dreams and mysteries, read favorite poems, tell jokes, speak about joys and sorrow with each other face to face. The increasing violence of fantasy and disassociated anger and isolation is producing unequaled violence, negative campaign insanity of not thinking that ordering 600 rounds of ammunition is an alert, words drenched in deception. Stories shared form the heart instantly connect us with heart, natural mind and natural world – renders us human and spiritual beings. Instant repair is needed! Take a moment of imagining ourselves in the shoes of others, and offer a sudden story that releases us from preoccupation into radiant alive shared space. Fall in love with poetry of imagination. An emergency is taking place and we can do the smallest and most disarming act of alchemy – communicate with total presence and care.
Joyful summer to all, Laura
See her current newsletter here. I’ll be searching for the interview I did with Laura years ago and add it to the American Prophets page when I do.
About Splabman
Poet & interviewer Paul E Nelson founded SPLAB (Seattle Poetics LAB) & the Cascadia Poetry Festival. Since 1993, SPLAB has produced hundreds of poetry events & 600 hours of interview programming with legendary poets & whole systems activists including Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Joanne Kyger, Robin Blaser, Diane di Prima, Daphne Marlatt, Nate Mackey, George Bowering, Barry McKinnon, José Kozer, Brenda Hillman & many others. Paul’s books include American Prophets (interviews 1994-2012) (2018) American Sentences (2015) A Time Before Slaughter (2009) and Organic in Cascadia: A Sequence of Energies (2013). Co-Editor of Make It True: Poetry From Cascadia (2015), 56 Days of August: Poetry Postcards (2017) and Samthology: A Tribute to Sam Hamill (2019) Make it True meets Medusario (2019), he’s presented poetry/poetics in London, Brussels, Nanaimo, Qinghai & Beijing, China, has had work translated into Spanish, Chinese & Portuguese & writes an American Sentence every day. Awarded a residency at The Lake, from the Morris Graves Foundation in Loleta, CA, he’s published work in Golden Handcuffs Review, Zen Monster, Hambone, and elsewhere. Winner of the 2014 Robin Blaser Award from The Capilano Review, he is engaged in a 20 year bioregional cultural investigation of Cascadia and lives in Rainier Beach, in the Cascadia bioregion’s Cedar River watershed.
