SPLAB is an intergenerational writing Performance, Resource and Outreach center dedicated to Poetry, Story-telling, Conversation, Debate, Consciousness and Building community through shared experience of the spoken and written word. (For Mission and Vision, click here.)
After being founded in 1997 in Auburn, Washington, by poets Paul E. Nelson and Danika Dinsmore, SPLAB resumed operations in August, 2009, in Seattle’s Columbia City neighborhood.
During its tenure in Auburn, SPLAB brought many renowned poets to town, including Anne Waldman, Andrew Schelling, Michael McClure, Wanda Coleman, Jerome Rothenberg, Eileen Myles, Ethelbert Miller, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Joanne Kyger, and others. We staged several Super Bowl of Poetry events, the annual Allen Ginsberg Open Mic Poetry Marathon, hosted and produced Teen Poetry Slams, and many low-cost writing workshops.
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See this article on Michael McClure’s March 2010 visit to Seattle, facilitated by SPLAB as part of the Visiting Poet Series.
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About Paul E. Nelson, Director of SPLAB
Father/Poet/Teacher Paul Nelson, co-founder of the Northwest SPokenword LAB. Author: Organic Poetry (Oct. ‘08, VDM Verlag, Germany.) Poems/Essays in: Golden Handcuffs Review, Jacket Magazine, Fulcrum, OlsonNow Blog, The Argotist, Raven Chronicles, and elsewhere. During his 26 years in radio, he interviewed Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Robin Blaser, Sam Hamill, Wanda Coleman, Eileen Myles, Jerome Rothenberg, George Bowering, and others.
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A Time Before Slaughter (Apprentice House, Oct ’09) is his first book of poetry, and he writes one American Sentence every day.
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Paul earned his M.A. from Lesley University in Organic Poetry, a study of North American poets writing (to different degrees) spontaneously, including Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov, Michael McClure, Robin Blaser, and others. He’s specifically interested in writing that is created in the moment, but with tremendous discipline, and essays at OrganicPoetry.org go into much detail on this subject.
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SPLAB's Auburn Location in 1997