SEATTLE, WA — The Cascadia Poetics Lab, a Seattle-based nonprofit, will host the 10th Anniversary Cascadia Poetry Festival from October 9-11, 2026. The event will feature writing workshops, panel discussions, and readings from prominent poets and academics from the Cascadia bioregion and beyond. Venues include the Rainier Beach Community Club and Kubota Garden.
The festival is a gathering of poets and bioregionalists exploring poetry's connection to environmental, political, historical, and sociological pursuits within the Cascadia bioregion. Its aim is to consider how prioritizing natural and cultural boundaries over arbitrary political ones can address climate change and other pressing social and political issues.
Featured speakers include allia abdullah-matta, Greg Bem, Amaranth Borsuk, Bill Carty, Xavier Cavazos, Zach Charles, Ching-in Chen, Stephen Collis, Gary Copeland Lilley, Tess Gallagher, Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Geneviève Hicks, Alicia Hokanson, Nadine Maestas, Dion O'Reilly, Roxi Power, Mateo Quispe, Linda Russo, Sharon Thesen, Miriam Tobin, Rodrigo Toscano, Matt Trease, and Terri Witek.
Workshops will explore bioregional poetics, poetry as politics, lyric and form, the connection between internal and external worlds, and poetry in times of crisis. An afterparty will be held on Friday and Saturday nights at a nearby location in Rainier Beach.
Workshop titles include "Startling the Poem Awake," "Flickers of the Poetic, A Watch Party," "Concerning Work and Poetry (of Course the Mundane is Generative!)," "The Green Being," and "Cascadia as a Field of Action (Poetry as Politics)."
The festival is supported by sponsors including 4Culture Sustained Support and 4Culture Public Free Access, Creative West, the Vogt Family Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, ArtsFund, La Sala, and CPL Supporters.
Registration for gold passes, workshop packages, reading packages, and student passes is available now via the festival website: 2026 Cascadia Poetry Festival. More information on the festival and Cascadia Poetics Lab's additional offerings can be found at cascadiapoeticslab.org. A complete schedule of the event is available here: Festival Schedule.
Cascadia Poetics Lab was founded in Auburn, Washington, on December 14, 1993. Founding Director Paul E. Nelson is available for interviews.
