Paul Nelson on Writing Communites, SPLAB! and the Washington Poets Association

Paul Nelson posted about SPLAB!, a performance poetry organization in Auburn, a suburb in the Green River Valley midway between Seattle and Tacoma, "We put out an anthology, Woodfrogs in Chaos which was a metaphor for what we were trying to do in the town. The frog is a sign of a healthy environment, whereas we felt a poetry series was a sign of a healthy cultural ecosystem."

Paul also formulates a list. "Some critical elements of community include:

• A comfortable place to share new work, get critical feedback and learn new writing exercises, even create new ones.
  
• An intergenerational setting.
  
• Exposure to master poets.
  
• Exposure to a wide variety of teachers, poetry genres or schools.
  
• Support for their writing practice.
  
• Information on where to publish and where to hear other work in the community.
  
• A place where they can be themselves."
  

Read Paul Nelson's entire excellent essay on Global Voices Radio. His last point seems crucial to me and one that "bootslack" I think alluded to in his comment on the first post. He wrote, "I think that all the way that ego and attachment destroys individuals lives are exactly the same way that they destroy community." I'm unsure if he means that possessing ego and attachment destroy individuals, or if exerting ego and attachment on other individuals is how this works?