Cascadia Poetry Festival 2014!
The 2nd annual Cascadia Poetry Festival is May 1-4 at Seattle University & Spring Street Center, is a grassroots, volunteer based international event 100% powered by you!
Over the course of the weekend, hundreds of artists, writers, scientists and activists will gather to explore, construct and bioregionally animate Cascadia to discover and foster deeper connection between all inhabitants and the place itself. We want to hear the bioregion speak through poetry, dialog and through the conversations that happen organically when creative and conscious people gather with the intent of discovery.
The festival features Academic, Democratic and Performance components, late night readings, a Small Press Fair and one workshop. Some of the best poetry minds in the bioregion, many Canadians not well known in the U.S., will gather, discuss this place and begin to better understand Cascadia and our role here.
All costs are raised by supporting organizations and individuals, and we need your help to ensure we can provide quality lodging and travel reimbursement to participating poets.
What We Need & What You Get
- Right now we need to raise $2800 to pay headliner poets. All funds raised will go to paying the poets expenses.
- $30 for a Gold Pass, a Cascadia sticker and map of the bioregion.
- $80 for two Gold Passes, a 3'x5' nylon Cascadia flag, a sticker and map of the bioregion.
- $110 for entry into the Daphne Marlatt Workshop, a Gold Pass, a Cascadia sticker and map of the bioregion.
- $125 for 4 Gold Passes, a Cascadia sticker, a 3'x5' nylon Cascadia flag and map of the bioregion.
- $250 - an afternoon of Tea and Bourbon and overnight stay with Red Pine for you and a guest in Port Townsend. The legendary translator of Chinese poetry and sacred Buddhist texts, Red Pine has agreed to host two different couples for an overnight stay in his quaint A-Frame cottage including afternoon tea & evening bourbon. (2 couples at $250 per pair.)
$515 for a sushi dinner with Sam Hamill, founder of Copper Canyon press and Paul Nelson, executive director and founder of SPLAB and the Cascadia Poetry Festival with two or three other guests of your choosing - at Sakura in Burlington, Washington, an amazing sushi bar. Sake is included and Sam can talk about his poetry life in Casadia, the influence of Asian and Indigenous wisdom cultures on Cascadian culture and his own translations. Paul will be happy to discuss the festival, future festival plans and other associated projects.
The Impact
We live in a bioregion that has been settled rather recently compared to other parts of the world and is one of the most beautiful and wild places left on the planet, with mountains, volcanoes, glaciers, rainforests, islands, waterfalls, fjords and many other remarkable natural features. But because of the recent settlement, the culture here is still largely undefined. We hope to discover and help define that culture in a way that is more just, sustainable and diverse in every sense of the word. Your contribution aids that process.
- This festival is the largest bioregional gathering of poets in Cascadia history.
- The first Cascadia Poetry Festival happened at SPLAB in Seattle in 2012.
- Full funding for this festival will help assure the fest continues in future years, in a similar grass roots way, with local steering committees using the same basic model of Academic, Democratic and Performative events to help better understand and define the culture of this bioregion.
- Other projects including an anthology of 100 Innovative Cascadia Poets and a free Massive Open Online Course on the history of innovative Cascadia poetry are being planned.
Other Ways You Can Help
- Help us spread the word! Use the Indiegogo share tools so that we can ensure the funds get to the poets for this festival.