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 Cecil
If I were a West Coast biker
I would roar into Lincoln City
on my Harley hog down the 101
El Camino Real – The Royal Road
swooping up and down the hills
over bluffs between Pacific beaches.
My tattoos might inspire fear
by association with terrible tales
but if I was like this biker
from West Yorkshire
hanging out in Hebden Bridge
famously home to hippies and lesbians
I would have you know
my bark is worse than my bite
I am a big softie at heart
too shy to let people get close…
Andrew
© Andrew Wilson, 2023
Cecil may or may not have received my card before writing his postcard (below) – coincidentally, I sent my card on the 17th of July and his was the 17th card I received – on the 25th of August. His poem (which I am not allowed to show you) referenced nothing more frightening than a predatory Robin in a nature documentary – enough to make his wife hide her eyes – I do hope my card did not scare them…
