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 Shari
Each stranger’s name and address
is like a mini detective challenge
I follow police protocol
and locate you on a map
so I know you are in Seattle
home to the PoPo Fest
Beyond that
your name gives me nothing
but for no better reason
than that you are
one “O” short of a monsoon
I picked this picture of
Indian shoes some years past
at the Leeds Asian Festival
so blinging I couldn’t resist…
© Andrew Wilson, 2023
Shari was quick out of the blocks, her postcard poem being my fourth to arrive – which means she had no more idea about me than I had about her… Her card was beautiful, her poem short and sweet…
