Author Archives: Splabman

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.

Eileen Myles at Elliott Bay Book Company, October 10, 2009

She was named by BUST magazine as “the rock star of modern poetry” & that would usually be the death knell for a poet in my book, but in the case of Eileen Myles, it’s only slightly hyperbolic. She was … Continue reading

Posted in Blog | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Charles Olson

USAmericans LOVE their dead poets. Especially those who they can’t or aren’t able to understand during the poet’s life. Charles Olson is another case in point. Living in poverty at the end of his life in 1970, Charles Olson was … Continue reading

Posted in Blog | Tagged | Leave a comment

Silliman’s Blog

For a poet in the U.S., one can get the impression that academic poetry is all that is happening, all that matters in USAmerican letters. For those who crave more (you crave more don’t you?) a blog dedicated to the … Continue reading

Posted in Blog | Tagged | Leave a comment

Fred Wah Book Release Party

Last night I drove up to Vancouver to attend the Fred Wah book release party. With Fred as the night’s headliner and the emcee being George Bowering, two of the most important North American poets of a generation, I knew this would be an event well worth attending. I left Seattle early, checked into the downtown hostel and arrived WAY early, but basically had my pick of seats. Continue reading

Posted in Blog | Tagged , | Leave a comment