Poetry Postcard Fest 2021 – It’s a wrap!

Got a bonus card today, perhaps in celebration of the September full moon but the Fest feels rather done. I’m not one to be waiting for cards. Yes I’m one of those people who mark your card as arrived when it does but I don’t worry about it if it doesn’t. I’m grateful for all the cards that arrive and stick with my notion that the Poetry Postcard Fest is really about the writing and sending of cards and anything that arrives is great! One reason for knowing what cards have made it to my mailbox is so I can read them before writing that person’s card or maybe adding a note about it. (If you were in my group 1 or 8 and haven’t received two cards from me, let me know and I can send you a digital version)

As noted earlier, I fell into the notion of triplets (sometimes a quad) of haiku, often about common subjects or experiences. I don’t remember using any of my pre-assembled prompts and I was glad for a few days that had extra inspiration. Sometimes this was a line or two or a single haiku that could be expanded the next day with more.

All in all a much less stressful and more joyful feeling fest than last year when August stretched from April. And so many cards! So many wonderful poems and so many people making cards too. This made me grit my teeth a few times as I endeavored to use up my stash of recycled boxes cards per my original plan. They’re all gone now, so I guess next year it will be on to something else and yes, I did already sign up for next year.

Hope to see you then! You can sign up already here and be warned that next year you’ll pay a lower registration fee if you register sooner and don’t put it off til the last month. The small fee goes to support the Cascadia Poetics Lab and all they do throughout the year. Registration this year also gives the option of making a separate donation to them.

So without further ado: Thank you to Groups One and Eight for all your cards and poems – it was a pleasure to go to the mailbox many many days this August and September and I hope we meet again.

Group 1:

Group 8:

Poetry Postcard Fest 2021 – It’s a wrap!

September 11, 2021 – Twenty Years On

Twenty years later we still remember that beautiful September morning, blue skies and all the promise of back to school and autumn ahead. While I may repeat my post from year to year in memory of that day and the lives lost and changed forever, the feelings are fierce.

Things have changed in the world due to politics and a pandemic. The flow of days and what happens has changed, probably forever. But, we all know where we were; how we heard; what we thought; what happened next, even while trying to swim and keep our heads above water today. We may be frightened by different events as we were by the idea of homeland security and attacks against Americans by other Americans because they looked different or worshiped difference. Things aren’t that different now. Much of our fears and anger are created within our own borders these days. People are hard to understand, their actions sometimes unreasonable, dangerous, unloving, full of rage and hatred without realistic cause.

REMEMBER

911, quilt by Mary Beth Frezon, 2001. Photo by Pearl Yee Wong of the Michigan State University Museum

This is what I wrote as an early statement about this quilt:

September 11, 2001
The phone rang. I watched my mother talking and prepared myself to hear that someone had died. Who could have imagined? We didn’t have a TV where we were so we didn’t get the barrage of instant images. All we could do is listen to the phoned reports and wonder.

What stuck me about that day was the change. The sky was crystal blue, the Adirondack water still sparkled with the sun, the mountains still held in the lake on all sides. What had changed was me. I felt that someone had knocked a hole in my body or head. That there was a gap between the me of a few minutes before and the me now. I looked at the others and they seemed to have the same problem putting themselves into this new existence.

I’ve used simple images to portray that turning point where the innocent happiness changed on a moment in time. I’ve left a suggestion that this will continue to evolve. All grief becomes tempered over time but how long before the memory of that moment is softened?

We continue to remember and take the time to memorialize and to remember.

…I grabbed the last Sunday Times
You stole my cab
We waited forever at the bus stop
We sweated in steamy August
We hunched our shoulders against the sleet
We laughed at the movies
We groaned after the election
We sang in church
Tonight I lit a candle for you
All of you

from — “Nine-Eleven” by Charlotte Parsons

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Remember.

Recently I realized that people coming into an age to work and to vote were either just born or about to be born in 2001. So we begin layers of people who have no connection, no memory of that day or its events. I realize that small children alive then don’t really remember, in the way that some younger than me at the time don’t remember Kennedy being killed. I don’t always know what to make of everything that brought us to this time, but I am still here, trying to do what’s right and making art and words and to keep remembering.

I remember being buoyed up by the responses to the September 11th attacks and also being worried about the sudden homeland security and searches and all “to protect us”. And I remember the rising tide of hatred, surrounded by all those flapping patriotic flags, hatred against those “other” people who hated us enough to want to hurt and terrify us. And here we are today.

Tides of fear and anger and hatred rise up over and over again and we must rise up too without fear and without anger and without hatred. Not in my name. Be strong enough to resist those easy paths and act with understanding.

Be kind. Be kind. Be kind.

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This is the quilt I was working on that day as it was in September, 2001. It is still a favorite and still filled with loss.

This is Repercussion, the quilt I worked on in 2002. (Now in private collection)

September 11, 2021 – Twenty Years On

September Arrives

The postcards are still arriving so I’m going to wait a week or two before doing final group photos. The cards have been numerous and great and at times perfectly timed. You never know when you send out a bunch of words how they’ll land, but thank you everyone who sent cards.

I enjoyed the break from watercolor/photograph cards of my own making. Using recycled grocery boxes with a few things gleaned from phone books and other sources gave a new focus to the words. This year’s poems were unrelated to the cards without a doubt but the cards weren’t unrelated to the month and the year beforehand.

My tradition of sending out a bonus card with an “end of august” poem continued. I don’t think my wishes for getting it done sooner/earlier is really possible. Somehow it needs that moment, well into the month, of thinking – oh my god – what will I do for the August 31st card???!!! So I’ll let it happen as it seems to have done for a few years. I’m grateful to Staples for taking the pressure off my home printer and getting it done quickly and efficiently.

I hope I managed to say at least ‘hi!’ on all the cards. This year there was a little more room per card for stuff like that, due to sending three to four haiku each night. I tried harder to look at the cards received pile to see what was going on there before writing but it never seems to influence me too much. I thought of it as having the recipient in mind. I always look to see first who the poems will be going to.

There’s an open mic for participants tomorrow and I hope to hear the experiences of others!

And oh yeah, signed up for next year. See you next August!

September Arrives