From October 9-11, 2026, the Cascadia Poetics Lab will host the 10th Anniversary Cascadia Poetry Festival in Seattle, Washington. The event will take place at the Rainier Beach Community Club and Kubota Garden, featuring writing workshops, panel discussions, and readings from prominent poets and academics from the Cascadia bioregion and beyond.
The festival is a gathering that explores poetry's connection to environmental, political, historical, and sociological pursuits within the Cascadia bioregion. It aims to consider how prioritizing natural and cultural boundaries, rather than arbitrary political ones, can address climate change and other pressing social and political issues. This year's festival marks a decade of fostering these conversations, highlighting the significant role poetry can play in regional and global discussions.
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. These poets and academics will lead workshops that delve into 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.
Workshops 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).' These sessions are designed to engage participants in the intersection of poetry and place, reflecting the festival's commitment to bioregionalism.
Sponsors of the festival include 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. Their support underscores the importance of the arts in community and environmental advocacy.
Registration for gold passes, workshop packages, reading packages, and student passes is now available via the festival website at 2026 Cascadia Poetry Festival. A complete schedule of the event can be found at festival schedule.
The Cascadia Poetics Lab, a Seattle-based nonprofit, was founded in Auburn, Washington, on December 14, 1993. The festival is a testament to its ongoing mission to explore the relationship between poetry and the bioregion, offering a platform for dialogue on issues that transcend political borders.
