“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.”
