Collage by Beverly Jackson
—from Rattle #68, Summer 2020
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Beverly Jackson: “This looked like fun, and gave me a chance to do a little collage while I was at it. The line on the front came to me as I closed my own eyes last night, and then I knew just the poem to send. Forgive me having so much fun at Mom’s expense (but she was a pistol).”
PERSPECTIVE
Photo by Christoph Strässlervia Flickr.com (CC BY-SA 2.0)
—from Rattle #68, Summer 2020
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Meghan Howard: “My aunt encouraged me to join this year, knowing I sometimes dabbled in poetry and wanting me to explore that more. I ended up finding poetry again, remembering what it used to be like to write the words simply to see them on the page and enjoy playing with their composition. Very little of what I wrote was brilliant, but all of it was fun to do, and it’s made me want to write more.”
POSTCARD FROM KAILUA-KONA
Photo by Paulius Dragunasvia Unsplash.com (CC–0)
—from Rattle #68, Summer 2020
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Donna Henderson: “I love the formal constraint that the space of a postcard provides, for the pressure it puts on language to vividly evoke an experience or impression with the barest of details. In this poem, the insight of the last line arrived in the moment of writing it, as though the pressure of the form itself had squeezed it out from underground.” (web)
—from Rattle #68, Summer 2020
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Rhonda Ganz: “I took part in the August Postcard Poetry Project for the sheer joy of on-the-spot writing. I’d pick a postcard, figure out the response I was having to the image on the front, release expectations, and write spontaneously—the opposite of my usual writing process. I often chose a prompt for the month. The year I wrote ‘The Hunger Games,’ all the poems were named after titles of books I owned. I also loved the anticipation of postcards from other poets arriving in the mail. A big perk: one postcard poem a day for the month of August equals 31 poems. I don’t write that many in the whole rest of the year! This issue of Rattle reminds me how satisfying the Postcard Poetry Project is. Sign me up again.” (web)
WHAT I WANT TO TELL YOU
for K.P.
Collage by Laura Gamache
—from Rattle #68, Summer 2020
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Laura Gamache: “2019 was the second time I entered Paul Nelson’s August Postcard Poetry Festival. The daily practice of writing an epistle poem to a strange poet directly onto a postcard—no notes or drafts or pulling from completed work—was a little bit scary, but also meditative. My husband’s mom, whom I adore, died August 2nd, and sending and receiving the postcards kept me going. Daily trips to the mailbox gave me a very tangible poetry community into September. I’ve already signed up for next year. I learned from other poets to dedicate the poem to the poet I was writing, to respond to something in the last poetry postcard I’d received, and to see handwriting as art. Reducing some of my own collages to postcard size and sending them was a bonus. I also collect fortune cookie fortunes, and pasted some of those onto card fronts, as well.” (web)
—from Rattle #68, Summer 2020
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Sonia Feldman: “‘5,000 Prostitutes of Erice’ is a reflection on the history of the city as home to a historically significant temple of Venus. The temple at one point housed as many as 5,000 priestess prostitutes. Sailors visiting Sicily climbed Mount Erice to reach the temple and paid high prices to sleep with one of the holy human embodiments of Venus. The priestesses began sexual service as young as twelve years old and continued into their mid-twenties. All of my poems are written by hand at one point or another in their lifecycle, and I frequently mail handwritten versions of my poems to friends and family. It’s important to me that poems have a physical life and not just a digital one. The quality of the handwriting (for me often all caps in my journal and then normally capitalized in type) changes the poem. Besides, there’s something generous and unfussy in giving a poem away; if you have it, then I don’t.” (web)
WHERE IS IT?
Photo by Eugene Fairbanks
—from Rattle #68, Summer 2020
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Eugene Fairbanks: “I have an obsession with artistic greeting cards. I happened to see the call for postcard poetry, and I read about the postcard poetry event. I am intrigued and would like to participate. I like the idea of a short poem with an accompanying illustration.”