The Poetry Postcard Fest is a challenge which encourages poets to write an unedited poem on a postcard and send it to a stranger. Organised by the Cascadia Poetics Lab, who organise the participants into lists of 31 + yourself for you to address your offerings to. This was my first year and hearing about it just in time to register, I was on List 15. The lists are sent out in early July and you have until the end of August to send out your missives – to date I have received 20 of 31 possibles and now that we are into September, it is allowable to share the cards and poems you sent and the cards but not the poems you received. I will share these in the order of sending and I will miss out those which I have not yet received in case they arrive soon…
Although the original poem is to be sent as written – crossings out, blots and all, I have typed them out for people who can’t read my writing and I am allowing myself to edit if I feel like it…
Dear Amy
Do you believe in coincidence
because what are the odd
of two Millers at 6 and 7
in the chart?
Could you be related even
brother and sister, wife and ex
just plain friends joined by
matching nomenclature
calling to remind that
sign-up is beckoning for the
Poetry Postcard Festival
and leaping into un-poet like
action – registering almost
simultaneously like
quantum entangled pairs
I choose not to believe
in coincidence…
© Andrew Wilson, 2023
Amy’s card was my 16th to arrive and her poem talked of a trip to the mountains – perhaps depicted in this wonderful original watercolour below…
