In this epic poem, Paul Nelson re-enacts the history of Auburn, Washington, originally known as the town of Slaughter. Written in the spirit of William Carlos Williams, Charles Olson, and Michael McClure, A Time Before Slaughter explores the history of this Northwestern place from the myths of Native people to the xenophobia toward Japanese-Americans, from the urge to control to the hunger for liberation. Set against the backdrop of a towering dormant volcano (Mt. Rainier), the beauty of the verse pays homage to the beauty of the place. "Here's one more big hunk of the American shoulder, " said poet Michael McClure. "As Olson carved his from the North East, Nelson takes his from the Pacific North West. It's beautiful time-space in new words."…If the original Slaughter reads like an archeological elegy for a past consciousness virally erased by settler 'Dominism, ' the extended book turns that on its head, and lends us new instruments with which to re-inhabit place… Poetry need not romantically lament a lost reality, or limply critique hegemonic systems… In these poems, Cascadia isn't a lost place, an Atlantis, but an island, a 'vast metaphor for concentration…' something potential always waiting to be spontaneously inhabited and made true."-Matt Trease