2023 Poetry Postcard Fest Thoughts

I started the postcard poetry fest early this year, about a week after receiving my list of addresses. Thirty-one names plus my own in group one (those over-eager, sign-up-right-away people). After a few years of hearing encouragement to start anytime after getting the list, for some reason this year I took it to heart.

In theory, it shouldn’t matter when you start, as long as you finish by the end of August. Originally the fest was all of August and that’s how I did it – one postcard a day with a newly written poem for each. I often started a few days early in hopes that the August first recipient might get it about on the day. No mail on Sundays of course so either two on Saturday or on Monday. I try to send the international cards early to account for long travel times.

This year, I started writing out my cards and off they went, one most days like normal. The only difference is that nothing arrived in my mailbox for days. I gave myself a pep talk, because I often am saying that the festival is all about the writing and sending, and the dailiness and the cards you receive are bonus. I strongly believe that. So I kept writing. Eventually August started and there was facebook chatter about people starting as there often is. Cards started arriving. I was a few weeks ahead though. I wrote some bonus cards. I wrote some response cards. I didn’t worry so much about sending the Sunday cards early because I was so far ahead. I just stuck with the plan of writing every day.

My own August tradition has been to send one card of my own design to everyone on the list – a day thirty-one card. It’s often something to do with my mailbox and mailboxes in general. I started thinking about this, but without the pressure of the end of August looming up close at hand. Got my card ready and now what?

I started hand-writing the cards a few at a time (rather than printing out the back with the same poem(s) to all), looking at what I’d received from people and writing a note and a response if I could. If not I chose from a handful of haiku I’d written for this. And so I finished a little before the end of the month and in the full swing of things, and feeling pretty good about it.

I think in the future I’ll stick with my normal timeline of starting just a day or two before August first. I was surprised that I missed the sense that I was one of a mass of people writing and sending poems. That mattered more to me than I’d known. And I’ll continue on keeping track of cards received so I can easily look to see what someone has sent me, in case there is a poetic response to be sent. Even if nothing pops up, it’s still nice to re-read at the time of writing and send thanks and acknowledgement.

So thank you Group One and all my bonus card friends!

my postcard to you
was magically changed to yours
by the mailman

2023 Poetry Postcard Fest Thoughts

for the quote box

Tip o’ the hat to James Gurney and his fine painting vlog:

The grandest and simplest things contain worlds within worlds… seeing them is a metter of the right point of view, and your painter’s eye is the special portal to such sights. — Richard Schmid

On a different note, (August) Poetry Postcard Fest is nigh upon us and the other night my brain went on the fritz and instead of sleeping it decided that I better remember how to write at least haiku… I finally gave up and turned on the light until we’d gotten some written down. Seriously brain, you come up with some weird stuff sometimes.

Anyway I have my cards ready to go for two groups and a general plan. On September 1 there’s a suggestion that we write an epic day-long poem, and I’m hoping that the brain lets me sleep some before that. Otherwise, I’ll be the one napping that day!

for the quote box

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 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

August Postcard Poetry Fest 2021

It’s definitely August (I’m melting!) and so it’s also Postcard Poetry Festival time!

This year I’m in two groups of 32 folks. The plan is to write a poem a day and send it via postcard to each successive person after you on the list. There is a lovely dailiness to this and it’s a good stretch of the “get-it-done-no-matter-what” muscle. Some days a poem comes easily, other days not so much.

I usually go into august armed with a short list of possible fall-back topics and sometimes a plan of what the poems will be – sonnets or whatever. I have quite a collection of postcards to use so I’m set for a long time. I make sure I have stamps. I have my sharpie pens at the ready.

Over the past year, during the pandemic, I began cutting up all my cardboard boxes: crackers, cereal, tissue, into postcard sized pieces. This may have started when I found a stack of old phone books that had nice or interesting covers and I ripped off the covers before recycling the rest. Who knows? Anyway, with a few donations from Mom, I ended up with more than enough postcard-sized hunks of boxes to use for August. I put self-adhesive postcard backs onto them and so far, so good.

I did have a short list of emergency ideas but I haven’t dipped into it yet. Also during the pandemic, I started responding to a friend’s facebook practice of posting a photo and asking us to show our daily “one good thing”. Early on in the pandemic I really looked forward to getting out in the yard and finding something good. Taking photos is another way of looking at things and dailiness is a good practice. When he stopped posting those for awhile, I picked it up and kept it going with my friends. Now that he’s back I send him a different version of my one good thing.

So it seems that in the first couple weeks of PoPoFest 2021 my cards are going out with a short poem about something simple but noticed. Something heard and pondered. After the first couple days, a format I like – three haikus on a theme – seemed to be the plan.

And that can be my good thing for the month!

Here’s a little view of all the cards received so far from the two groups. I also got a card (not shown) snuck in from the World Peace Poetry session in February – very welcome after some list rummaging! And turns out two bonus cards which I’d only registered one.

August Postcard Poetry Fest 2021

Poetry Postcard Fest 2021 – Register Soon!

Just a reminder that a great way to stretch your poetry muscles is to get some daily practice and it’s that time again for August’s Poetry Postcard Fest. Registration ends on July 18, so time is short to sign up but you can do it!

You’ll get a list of 31 other folks and starting just before or on August 1, you’ll write a poem a day, sending it off to each successive person after you on the list. I usually have a short list of possible prompts in case I get stuck but generally once going it’s easier to keep going. Last year as you may recall my biggest problem was a sudden burst of double-sonnets which led to cards with writing on both sides of the postcard. THhere’s no theme or form requirements (there’s talk on the page about composing directly on the card but I don’t do that (although I don’t edit what I write each day in notebook or computer). You do what works for you and what gets the postcards in the mail every day.

The daily commitment is important to both you and your own writing as well as to the folks in your group. Who doesn’t love to get real mail in the mailbox?

Be bold! You can do it! Read more about it and you can sign up here. Small fee supports the Seattle Poetry Lab.

Here’s Harry practicing watching for the mailman. (ok he might be watching chipmunks… but he does watch the mailbox too)

Poetry Postcard Fest 2021 – Register Soon!

(August) Poetry Postcard Festival 2020

So many months at home. So many postcards. So many poems going out in the mailbox and quite a number coming into my mailbox too! Here’s the two groups of cards (two “groups” or “months” worth) that I have received to date.

I started the festival early this year, in April. I had misgivings because April is not August but it is Poetry Month and I had committed to writing a poem every day as I usually do in April for NaPoWriMo. I laid this down as my caveat for starting early, because I post those publicly each day. But I figured, the recipients of these cards may not be expecting a card in April and well, no one really looks at my blog. I figured it would all be good.

So I started writing. I’d been home since March 4, the first couple weeks of that with some illness. In April there wasn’t much to do except online work “stuff” and sitting outside to paint and watch the world. I started carrying a pocket sized notebook and actually writing down phrases or ideas that came to me although normally I compose on the computer. I have often jotted a digital note or done a voice recording of an idea on my phone but there was something nice about scribbling down an idea. I quickly realized that the process was much better if I at least tried to be legible in my scribbling.

In the past I have written in a form or with a theme for NaPoWriMo or Poetry Postcards. This year I had no set ideas along those lines. What developed really surprised me. My poems developed a trend of being double sonnets. Like, I could not fit a great number of these daily poems onto the back of a postcard at all. I started using blank postcards, perhaps with a little watercolor swirling on the front, and putting the start of the poem on the front and continuing it on the back. For someone who tends to sonnet length and haiku, this was amazing. One was even three sonnet-lengths long, two being all 5 syllable lines and one being all 7 syllable lines! Where the heck do these things come from?

Now, we are encouraged in Poetry Postcard Fest to write “spontaneously” on each card – to write that day’s poem directly on the card. I confess, I have never done this. I write directly into BBEdit on the computer, in a file for that month’s poems. No more editing than one might do scratching out a word as you’ve just written it. No later fussing. This gets backed up a couple ways. I copy it directly onto the card. No edits. The address gets put on the card. A stamp. I wander downstairs, scan the front and back of the card and carry it out to the waiting mailbox.

Rarely, perhaps a couple times in any postcard/poetry month I might write something I think is a little too personal or one I feel uncomfortable sharing. Usually I can put it aside and write out something else in a short while. Or I will write a second poem or set of haiku using something about the first one.

I look forward to the daily ritual of writing, copying it out onto a card, making a digital copy and then bringing it out to the mailbox. I love going outside late at night and this is a wonderful excuse to go out – to mail off a handwritten poem to someone who doesn’t expect to get this particular poem. Oh yes, I know they hope to get something in their mailbox! Who doesn’t?

I wrote daily in April, most of May, a part of June and then it seemed I needed a break. I waited for August and it was hard to pick up the pieces of the process because that excitement had been in April. It was all right and will be again. I chatted with the other poets and sent a few cards and got close to the actual place where I was on the second list of names. And so I started writing again with the sense of deadline and someone waiting. And I started getting more cards in my own mailbox as people started their August Month of Poetry Postcards which lingers on into September. We were all needing some support and strength and it was good to talk about our lives and the world.

I have a tradition of writing a special poem for August 31 and sending it to everyone in my group. Day 31 still gets their own poem though! I used part of my free time in August to think about that and work on it. After I’d addressed all those cards I thought about all the different people in all the different places they were going. I hoped that my first cards had made it to them safely, maybe even that they’d been enjoyed along the way as well as by the recipient. I send a card to my two local postmasters as thanks for their help and to some bonus folks out of PoPo. That is something I really enjoy doing.

In September I took a rather intensive online watercolor class which sort of kicked my butt and head for two weeks about painting with intention. In theory, this is hard when you start and then should get easier. As the class was ending I realized there was a poetry class available about spontaneous writing and that seemed to fit into the deep thinking I was doing about intentionality and flow so I took the leap and signed up for that. I’m not sure what will become of me but I will carry on and have already signed up for August Poetry Postcard Fest 2021.

Signing up for the future is like planting bulbs – a pure sign of hope in the world!

(August) Poetry Postcard Festival 2020

Summer Doldrums

Yes apparently this time of year I wander off and do – not much.

I’ve been working – from home, and adjusting to this more and more. It’s nice to have lunch just a few steps away. My commute is up or down a flight of stairs. I miss the audio-book time but I don’t mind having that time back.

I’ve been painting (you people doing Instagram can find me using mbfrezon) and writing because it’s officially August Poetry Postcard Festival again, although this time, having started in April, it’s more just PoPo 2020.

I’ve been taking photos, and reminding myself to be grateful for things large and small, often small. Tomato and corn season has arrived along with local peaches.

When I started working from home, I moved (strong like bull) the AC to the room where I’m working, in hopes that I could not pass out from heat. I rigged up a doubled sheet over the door and left just a few inches open at the bottom, and made a looped way to keep the door open just open just wide enough for cat whiskers. Ginny and Harry come in to visit. They plop themselves down and are generally quiet. Sometimes they jump up to surprise me but Ginny often lays in the sunny window and Harry finds himself a soft place even if it’s just a sheet of paper.

Thinking is more stinking than drinking, but to feel is for real.
— Sufi Sam

Nothing can resist a human will that will stake even its existence on the extent of its purpose.
— Benjamin Disraeli

Summer Doldrums

August, Must be Postcard Poetry Fest!

That’s a hard corner to turn, from World Watercolor Month to August Poetry Postcard Fest, but here we are day two already. Two postcards sent off already and FIVE!!!! already received!

Tonight I was pretty desperate to paint so I pulled off at Kristy’s Barn and spent time with the swallows watching the sun do its thing.

Here are all of tonight’s photos:

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Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
— Henry Miller

August, Must be Postcard Poetry Fest!

World Watercolor Month Days #25 and #26

Not sure how I forgot to post my bit of watercolor yesterday but here it is. I have a new palette and I’m debating how to set it up, so I’m still messing around to see what colors some new possibilities become when mixed with other more known players. Seems to me that if you’re going to have another palette it should be substantially different in some ways from the other ones you’ve already got going. I don’t know. On the other hand if it was wildly different from what I commonly use, chances are I wouldn’t use it? Ack.

Yesterday I received my first postcard for the August Poetry Postcard Festival. Today I received postcards #2 and #3. They blew me away, humbled me and filled me with gratitude.

World Watercolor Month Days #25 and #26