From PPF Committee member Judy Kleinberg:

If you’ve ever changed your name, you will appreciate how difficult it is to get rid of your previous name.

The Poetry Postcard Fest has been around since 2007, when Paul Nelson and Lana Ayers devised a plan for a month-long spontaneous-poetry postcard event that would happen each August. The August Poetry Postcard Fest took off, year by year building a growing group of eager postcarders. The word and the postcards spread around the world.

In 2017, the anthology 56 Days of August was published to mark the Fest’s 10-year anniversary. That was really the first clue that the Fest was about more than the month of August.

In fact, it took (takes) the coordinators months to wrangle many hundreds of participants, get their addresses correct, their names organized in lists, and the lists distributed. Participants receive their lists in early July and can start sending postcards right away. Adding those extra 25 days of July to the 31 of August, participants have 56 days to get through their list of 31 names by the end of August.

When August was no longer just August, the Fest was rebranded without much fanfare. August was gone from the name, leaving the Poetry Postcard Fest.

For long-time participants, the ghost of August remains. Many feel compelled to wait, as before, to start writing their daily poems on August 1. Others are happy to take advantage of the extra days but continue to call it the August Poetry Postcard Fest. Newer participants, unaware of the August connection, may start sending postcards right away and get anxious when they haven’t received any cards by the third week of July.

So here’s the bottom line: 2025 Poetry Postcard Fest participants will
1) register
2) confirm their name and address when they receive a confirmation email in June
3) receive their official list in early July
4) write daily poems and mail poetry postcards so that all 31 are in the mail
no later than August 31.

Whatever you call it, the Poetry Postcard Fest is a rewarding act of community and creativity.