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 Caren
No street photographer I
no Cartier-Bresson
but I do sometimes seize a moment
as with this elderly couple
reviewing their garden
and a lifetime of closeness
I imagine – in Upwhey
where the River Whey comes up
before plunging its short course
down to Weymouth
with my late mother
I snapped them…
© Andrew Wilson, 2023
As you can see from Caren’s postcard to me, which from the relative dates, I calculate means she had received my card to her and has responded in kind with a painting of trees and a poem to match (which I wish I could show you).
Andrew, thank you for sharing our group’s work in this way. It has made me more aware of the depth of heart within the members of Draft List 15. Sometimes in the midst of writing, I would have such curiosity about whether on that day that I was writing, was I expressing anything that might matter or be needed by the one, essentially a stranger, who would receive it days later by post. Well, I will never know that, right? The wholeness you are providing to our group’s work somehow makes it okay, and I cannot explain why that is so though I know it is meaningful . . . Rather like the conversation that begins to flow after an initial, possibly awkward, introduction of one to another.
Dear Karen – thank you so much for your kind comment – I am sure you are not alone in wondering whether our missives make a difference and how they will be received – I know I wonder and it is why I extended the project for me and now I see, for others. Group 15 did not appear much in the PoPo Facebook page and I don’t know if this meant we were all late signing newbies or what? I think that the organisers ought to allow us to include our email addresses on the sign-up if we want to share them – after of course, the postcards are sent.
I am embarrassed to realise that, despite my careful recording of cards sent and received, I confused Caren with Karen showed your card to me today when it should have been two cards on and so this poem is not the one you received but rather than change it, Carens will appear two posts on together with the postcard I sent you…
I am at [email protected] if you would like to continue the conversation
Andrew
No worries—I get lost myself in my own “meticulous” (🤣) record keeping! I had rather regretted that so few in our group had participated in the Facebook group, but, Andrew, you made all the difference in that. Thank you again! Karen
Your card to me is now posted…