Take Home Quote of the Day

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place…I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”
? Elliott Erwitt

Take Home Quote of the Day

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!

(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

Day 29, NaNoWriMo – What’s That I Hear?

Yes folks it was the NaNoWriMo crew applauding and cheering on my superpowers of writing and telling me I’m their hero because:

I’m ripping open my winner shirt as we speak. I like all of them although my particular favorite is the venn diagram: 50000 words, 30 days, 0 excuses. Words to live by folks. Words to live by.

Anyway, I was just part way through the part that almost crushed me with it’s abyss-ness earlier in the month. I ended up blipping over it and hurtling towards the big wedding. The abyss looks smaller but needs more fill and there’s still one wedding to go before everyone starts their happily ever after.

In the meantime I promised myself some wine and some sleep.

PS the anticipation tonight while I tried to beat the clock at the library was intense!

From the Quote Box

A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light. — Leonardo da Vinci

The Eve of NaNoWriMo (aka Halloween)

Yup, it’s that time again when words fly, charts grow, pencils get gnawed, and a writer’s mind turns to – well, how can I get 1667 words down today?

I was off today and I set myself some chores to do. I cut down part of a tree using my new reciprocating saw (battery-powered no less! I had a nice coat of sawdust!) and put down the last storm windows and even threw a load of wash in. I fiddled with my monopod/walking stick (still too big to go in the main suitcase) and then the smaller tripod (yes, the quick release head will go on it but it could use a washer underneath it).

Then Mom and I agreed that dinner and The Voice would be a good way to spend the evening so that’s just what we did. Then I went off to join the other WriMo’s at Denny’s. They were running pre-NaNoWriMo sprints so I fiddled with photos and now I’m doing a pre-midnight blog entry.

Earlier today before all the chores and stuff, I took a detour and saw things like this:

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Click here for the other few photos.

Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it till the test comes. And those having it in one test never know for sure if they will have it when the next test comes. — Carl Sandburg

Chasing Clouds

I was driving towards these towering plops of whipped cream-ish clouds with darkness below on the way home. And by whipped cream I mean when you whip cream and then keep whipping until it’s almost just about to begin thinking about becoming butter…

They were to the east and north and it became obvious that I should scope out some clear views in that direction. Oh well, I did find some new pokestops etc.

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js