Call For 2008 August Poetry Postcard Fest Participants
In August 2007, Organic Poetry guy Paul Nelson and Lana Ayers initiated the first August Postcard Poetry Fest with 95 poets signing up to write and send a poem a day on a postcard. It's nearly August so we're chomping at the corner of our cards with the 2nd annual August Poetry Postcard Fest.
Here's what's involved:
Get yourself at least 31 postcards. These can be found at book stores, thrift shops, online, drug stores, antique shops, museums, gift shops. (You'll be amazed at how quickly you become a postcard whore.)
On or about July 27th, write an original poem right on a postcard and mail it to the person on the list below your name. (If you are at the very bottom, send a card to the name at the top.) For crying out loud WRITE LEGIBLY!
Starting on August 1st, ideally in response to a card YOU receive, keep writing a poem a day on a postcard and mailing it to successive folks on the list until you've sent out 31 postcards. Of course you can keep going and send as many as you like but we ask you to commit to at least 31 (a month's worth).
What to write? Something that relates to your sense of "place" however you interpret that, something about how you relate to the postcard image, what you see out the window, what you're reading, using a phrase/topic/or image from a card that you got, a dream you had that morning, or an image from it, etc. Like "real" postcards, get to something of the "here and now" when you write.
Do write original poems for the project. Taking old poems and using them is not what we have in mind. These cards are going to an eager audience of one, so there's no need to agonize. That's what's unique about this experience. Rather than submitting poems for possible rejection, you are sending your words to a ready-made and excited audience awaiting your poems in their mailboxes. Everyone loves getting postcards. And postcards with poems, all the better.
Once you start receiving postcard poems in the mail, you'll be able to respond to the poems and imagery with postcard poems or your own. That will keep your poems fresh and flowing. Mailing to Canada? .72c. Be sure to check postage for cards going abroad. The Postcard Graveyard is a very sad place.
That's all there it to it. It's that fun and that easy.
To check out what we've done before, visit the blog [where you'll also see we also have Perennial Poetry Postcard List of folks who try to write a postcard poem at least once a week regardless of receiving in order to keep connections flowing.], http://www.poetrypostcards.blogspot.com, Paul Nelson’s website or our Facebook group.
(you need to be a facebook member for this and if you are, please refrain from posting poemcards until after August, ok?)
If you are interested in a weekend writing retreat on Orcas Island in September, please let us know that as well. Tentative weekend, September 19-21, 2008.
To sign up now:
Please email Lana, lana.ayers@yahoo.com with your postal mailing address to sign up for the 2008 August Poetry Postcard Fest.
The only cost associated with this is your postage and postcards. It’s free to join, but donations are always welcome to support this and other projects like it. We will keep the list open and add names until July 25th.
And don’t forget to forward this info to all your friends and have them join us too.
