August Postcard Poetry Fest
In 2007 I participated in the first August Postcard Poetry Fest, organized by Lana Hechtman Ayers and Paul E. Nelson. What follows are all the poems I sent to participants, the recipient’s names and locations (as of 2007), plus other occasional notes. In some cases I sent two poems. I received poetry postcards from 26 of the 30 other people on the same list as me (including two poems from one poet), and still have them in a box—the postcards, that is, not the poets. I imagine the four missing postcards are stuck behind a sorting machine in Toledo or Umatilla, to be discovered some distant day by a postal archaeologist. Here, though, you can read the poems I sent (just 30 instead of 31, since I myself was one of the 31 poets for the month of August). Some of them have been published, as indicated. I’m unlikely to publish any of the rest of these poems, so I’m sharing them here. The poems include mostly haiku and tanka, but also some longer poems that still fit on a postcard, plus a few anagrams. In some cases, as I recall, the poems were inspired by the postcard image, but I have no record of any of the postcards themselves. Gone with the postal wind!
For me, this exercise is a spur to creativity and connection. Its goal is not to produce fine poems, but to trust spontaneity in response to a postcard, one’s own sense of place, or the person receiving the poem. Many poems are acts of play, and perhaps nothing more. As such, the August Postcard Poetry Fest honours process over product, and it’s a pleasure to know that the recipients mentioned below each received a postcard I sent, and spent a moment reading what I wrote. I too enjoyed reading what I received, not just for the value of the poetry but for the value of personal interaction (often with strangers) and as a shared celebration of poetic expression.
In 2017, to mark the fest’s tenth anniversary, Ina Roy-Faderman, Paul E. Nelson, and J. I. Kleinberg published 56 Days of August (available on Amazon), collecting poems from the 2016 postcard fest. The August Postcard Poetry Fest continues to be held every year. Visit the website for more details, or visit the Facebook page (in fact, it was an invitation to join this page in 2007 that prompted me to join Facebook in the first place). Perhaps you might participate in the August Postcard Poetry Fest one year yourself.
1.
unshaved—
the eye of my webcam
keeps staring at me
Sent to Lana Hechtman Ayers, Kirkland, Washington
2.
rain falls
at their 60th high school reunion—
old friends apologize
for forgetting
each other’s birthdays
Sent to Kim Bridgford, Wallingford, Connecticut
3.
drifting, drifting
over the center line,
the tennis ball truck
Sent to Holly Anderson, Jackson Heights, New York
I confess that this poem mystifies me today, but might make more sense if I could remember the image on the front of the postcard
4.
breaking the tension
beside the water-strider,
your acorn cap
Sent to Janet McCann, College Station, Texas
5.
finding them by touch
under the paisley couch . . .
newborn kittens
Sent to Pit Pinegar, Plainville, Connecticut
6.
I take the knife in my hand,
wish I could undo
the breaking of the licked seal
on that letter I wish
you’d never written,
wish I could mail it back,
return to sender,
let you keep the dark ink
on those once-wet pages,
let you think I didn’t care,
didn’t know how
to use this knife.
Sent to Brendan McBreen, Auburn, Washington
7.
Yes, that’s me,
with the yellow eyes,
in the corner,
staring at you
reading this postcard.
Sent to Robin Cherney, Redmond, Washington
I found it hard to resist being self-referential regarding all the postcards I sent
8.
red dragonflies
on the Bible
copulating
Sent to Raul Sanchez, Seattle, Washington
9.
why did she mail it,
this French postcard
from the past,
from a time when we
were not yet lovers
Sent to Brent Allard, Manchester, New Hampshire
This poem was published in Skylark 3:2, Winter 2015 (England)
10.
for your eyes only,
she says with a shy nod—
I think about this
then raise a hand to caress
her remaining breast
Sent to Lois P. Jones, Glendale, California
This poem was published in Gusts #26, Fall/Winter 2017 (Canada); the original said “surreptitious” instead of “shy”
11.
faint cirrus clouds—
a shiny penny
still on the train tracks
*
on the just
and unjust
the sun shines
just so
Sent to Peggy Miller, The Villages, Florida
Two poems sent
12.
blowing leaves—
for once I let them go
into the neighbour’s yard
Sent to Iris Dunkle, Washington, D.C.
13.
collapsed freeway—
genders and crosses
painted onto concrete
Sent to Jessea Perry, Oakland, California
Because the recipient lived in Oakland, I thought about the Cypress freeway structure that collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing 42 people—it was sobering for me to visit the collapsed freeway shortly after surviving the earthquake myself + +
14.
what’s left
of our sailboat’s
wave
disappears
in the freighter’s
wake
Sent to Marit Saltrones, Bainbridge Island, Washington
This poem was published in American Tanka #25, June 2015
15.
lord of car
floor card
coral ford
rod or calf
old for car
*
my bumbershoot is made of rice
rice is made of pythons
pythons are made of trivia
trivia is made of pulleys
pulleys are made of marmalade
marmalade is made
Sent to Carol Dorf, Berkeley, California
Two poems sent; each line of the first poem is an anagram of the recipient’s name
16.
trial by trail
doom by mood
die by dei
Sent to Jennifer Flescher, Arlington, Massachusetts
A variation on anagrams here
17.
i
in
tin
ting
getting
forgetting
forget
forge
for
or
o
Sent to Paul E. Nelson, Auburn, Washington
18.
Narcissus
the
I
of
the
beholder
Sent to David-Baptiste Chirot, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
19.
my muse returned
from vacation today,
leaving me
dormant seeds—
I water them with this ink
Sent to John Davis, Bainbridge Island, Washington
20.
no thing in nothing
nothing in no thing
~
hinting night noon
ninth hinting goon
~
toning, thinning, oh
hinting, nothing on
Sent to Rochelle Nameroff, El Cerrito, California
21.
Anagrams
auk piñata chi
aha, I pick a nut!
ha, a pain! I tuck . . .
I huck paint—aa!
a nick-it-up aha
I, a kaput chain
Captain Haiku
Sent to Frances LeMoine, Nashua, New Hampshire
Anagrams of my own nickname, Captain Haiku + + +
22.
rusted spurs
hang from a rotting rafter
foreclosed farm
Sent to Tara Betts, Pearl River, New York
23.
reading it first at the mailbox—
the colourful postcard
with a foreign stamp
Sent to Valerie Fetherston, Victoria, British Columbia
This was the first of two names on my list that required more than a domestic U.S. postcard stamp, since I was mailing it to Canada, which inspired the poem—either that or receiving a postcard from Canada
24.
Difficult News
a stamp licked
for the poetry postcard—
all the news that fits,
yet people die every day
for lack of what’s there
Sent to Jenifer Lawrence, Poulsbo, Washington
25.
folding laundry—
a wad of what’s left
of her love note
Sent to A. K. Allin, Seattle, Washington
26.
Tanabata festival—
forbidden lovers meet
at the Japanese garden
Sent to Julene Tripp Weaver, Seattle, Washington
27.
Teck Cominco Anagrams
Mike, concoct!
Neck to comic,
met cock icon—
mock conceit!
Sent to Linda Lee Crosfield, Castlegar, British Columbia
In the summer of 1984 I had tour of the Cominco mining facility in Castlegar, the home of this poem’s recipient, which inspired these anagrams
28.
baseball record book—
a black boy asks his grandfather
why his name has an asterisk
Sent to Ruby Kane and Ami Eaton, Seattle, Washington
29.
the roar
of motorcycles
down the nearby freeway . . .
I ponder my grass
in need of a mow
Sent to Mathew Timmons, Los Angeles, California
30.
Explaining Everything
If the universe
is infinite in all directions,
then the center could here,
even in the middle of me,
or anywhere.
My teenager thinks he
is the center of the universe,
and maybe, just maybe,
he’s right.
Sent to John and Roberta Olson, Seattle, Washington
When I wrote this poem, my son was just four years old, so not yet a teenager