From Kim Tedrow, PPF Participant:
I first participated in the Poetry Postcard Fest in 2019. I’m also a mixed-media artist with an embarrassing hoard of rubber stamps, and I hand stamp all of my postcards.
In 2019 I was working two jobs – one at Target. I remember writing a postcard poem in the Target breakroom on a 15 minute break: “In the Target break room / no one knows I’m a poet.” Some horrible things happened at my full-time job about 2/3 of the way through the month, and my life went inside-out. I had to stop. It’s taken five years to get the courage to participate in the postcard fest again, and here I am again in 2024, mailing hand-stamped postcards.
I keep my postcards, both those to be mailed and those received, in postcard pages in a 3-ring binder with my list and postage stamps. When I signed up this year, I pulled the notebook off the shelf and discovered about a dozen postcards, addressed and stamped, from 2019. Only three of them didn’t have poems on them. I hadn’t sent them because I hadn’t scanned them for my records.
To be honest, I’m embarrassed about this, and didn’t know what to do with them. I considered throwing them away, but instead, decided to put poems on the blank cards, scan them, and send them. Yes, I sent postcards five years late.
Since 2019, I’ve developed a tremor in my dominant hand, so I can’t reliably write by hand. So I’m typing a poem daily and printing them on shipping labels to stick on the backs of the cards. When I have a sheet of labels filled with poems, I print and send them in batches. As of this writing, I’m on track for 2024.
Last Thursday, I mailed 29 postcards: 9 for another commitment, 12 to those on the 2019 list, and 8 to the 2024 list. As far as poetry postcards go, I’m finally caught up.
Thank you for sharing such a vulnerable impression with us. I love the idea of discovering forgotten poems, like a gift both to yourself and to the recipient from the past. I think it’s wonderful you mailed all those postcards, no matter how late they may be. I bet they’ll arrive right on time, just the same! I also mailed my postcards in batches this year. I got very sick with covid almost exactly at the start of the PPF, so it was hard to write, and even harder to leave my house and get to the post office. I hope my postcards reached their intended destinations.
Kim, I always say its never too late for a postcard. Welcome back. I m love these cards.I’ve been doing this for years
Kim, Welcome back. I m love these cards. I’ve been doing this for years. Yours put me to shame.
I love your Target breakroom poem. Sometimes the best words come when you’re not trying to write, just letting your word-brain melt into a situation. That’s what I love about this postcard poem project – the forgiving, ephemeral nature of the words I send out and receive. It’s like a continually open door.
Thank you.
What a brave post and what thought provoking postcards. Keep writing. Keep participating. You inspire me. I did not sign up this year because of too many projects simultaneously going on, but poetry on postcards are awesome.
Kim your story is a prose poem. Your creativity rings loud and clear. I also hear your heart. Isn’t catching up an odd notion. You are right where you are. I would welcome a postcard from you any year.
This is all…I love all of this. The words, the art, the creativity, the pause….you riding on the back of a Phoenix….
How about a movie where two shy postcard poets work together and don’t know the other is a poet until they end up in the same group? Of course, they fall in love.
Oh, Kim!
I laughed and then started crying.
Stopping, playing catch-up and doing that with gusto, if I may say so!
Not sharing at work.
And the inside-out life-gutting time that caused you to brake.
Thank you for sharing here!
Kim, I admire your tenacity and love that you’re sending those postcards out into the world finally.
Hi Kim,
Very nice. I picked up a phrase a couple years ago…it goes ” there’s a poem in this place”. Even in Target there’s a poem! Never too late!
Hello Kim, What a beautiful, tender post! Love the cards, too. Glad you’re at it again.