May 2022 Poetry Postcard Fest Testimonials

Joe Cottonwood
For an introverted poet (and aren’t we all?) the fest is like a great party – hiding our faces behind postcards we can touch – we can dance and be playful – and unlock some fine poetry…

Charlene Neely
I first participated in 2010 I believe and then could not for many years. Got started again 3 years ago and love it even more than that first time. I have sent and received cards from all over the world and become friends with many of these. It ties me to the world as a whole.

Teri Buthman Mahl
As much as I love writing poetry, what I love about participating is the connections I made (though brief) when I receive a postcard in my mailbox. It makes me remember that we are all one and gives me a glimpse into lives of people I may never meet in person but I have “seen” them…their creative spirit, their emotions, their love. Poetry postcards are a reminder to open my heart.

Judy Kleinberg
The Poetry Postcard Fest is both community and practice. This simple medium gives each of us an opportunity to find and share our own voice. Since I first participated, in 2011, writing a short, unprompted poem each day has evolved from a one-month-a-year activity to a daily habit. During that time, I’ve exchanged postcards with hundreds of people, actually met a few in person, and enlarged my poetry network far beyond the local. The connections are vital and I often find myself surprised to remember that I’ve not actually met most of these wonderful poets and artists.

Neal Lemery
The project ramped up my writing, and my appreciation for the “daily write” discipline. What a celebration of the art of poetry and writing! I received such great and inspiring poems from strangers who became colleagues and fellow artists.

Mary Beth Frezon
Participant since 2014

The Poetry Postcard Fest has been a wonderful way for the past nine years to sink into the daily writing habit, to be ever watchful for a scrap of life that can be woven into a short poem and shared. Could I just challenge myself to write for 31 days? Sure. I know that the community aspect is important – folks are excited to hear that their cards have arrived at their destinations. They want to be a part of this poetry network that reaches in so many directions and all across the world. While the poems aren’t shared generally, many people will say – got your card and poem thanks!, or often folks will post a “group shot” of received cards and poets will say – oh, I see my card! So there is a real pleasure in writing daily and sending but also in knowing that someone received and read your words, written on a day in August.

Penelope Moffet
The postcard poetry festival feels like this exciting, perpetually renewing gift I get to unwrap every day while the festival is going on, never knowing what I’ll find to write onto the back of the daily postcard, never knowing what exquisite offering will land in my mailbox from another poet.

Yvette Flaten
The festival inspires me to write more, and form meaningful connections across the breadth of the writing community.

Mary Skeen
So many fests I’ve lost count, maybe 8. Connecting with friends new & old, sharing love of words & postcards is such a joy. Synchronicity is an exciting surprise bonus.

Jessica Gershon
(The Poetry Postcard Fest) is what my soul needed. It has introduced me to parts of myself that I never knew existed. It’s the inspiration for me to create art and poetry all at once. I don’t just write poetry.. I get to connect with other poets, I get to create art in the form of painting or collages. When I finish a card I feel so accomplished. This fest has really impacted my life and my true passion. I’m very thankful for my discovery of this event. I love it so much that I make postcards year around now..and it’s become a huge part of who I am! Thanks Paul Nelson I’m forever inspired and grateful.

Charlie Stobert
I have been involved in the fest since its inception, I think; about 15 years. It has allowed me to connect with new people and in particular new posts and their poetry from around the world! It has become an important annual practice for me and my writing.

Elizabeth Maxey
This will be my 11th year with the fest, and I can’t imagine a year without it. August is the one month when I allow myself to prioritize poetry over other things, because somewhere out there, somebody is counting on me to write. I love, too, the fest’s validation of short poems, which deserve more credit than the publishing world often gives them. We CAN say more with less!

Colette Dutton
The Postcard Poetry Festival offers a brief foray (56 days…) all on the space of a postcard into the imagination or one’s own reality. My poems are connected (or not!) to the art. The art and the word, the giving and receiving – there is a sense of magic, for me, year after year.

Margaret Ripperger
The Postcard Poetry Festival 2021 was my first. I put all of my cards with original poetry in the mail early in the month as I was looking forward to receiving replies to mine. Was not disappointed.

Jessica Temple
I’ve participated several times, though inconsistently. As a professor, August is a very busy month for me full of syllabi, lesson prep, and meetings. Poetry Postcard Fest is important in that it gives me the necessary motivation for the creative bust I need to start the school year on a positive, energetic note.

Noreen Hyde
I have participated for five years. I just love the creativity on all levels — making or finding postcards, having complete freedom within the constraints of a small space to create poems. It is so encouraging and affirming, and so so fun to get ekphrastic mail instead of just bills. It also impacts my family every august because I share the poems I write and the ones I receive. Best $10 I ever spent!!! Thank you for creating and continuing this community!!!

Jacqui Hollaback
I’ve always loved writing letters
I write to all my friends and loved ones all the time, on paper and on postcards
I love to draw the Love is…characters and other famous cartoons
I love writing and reading poetry
I also love to ‘meet’ and make new poet friends
The poetry postcard festival allows me to do all of it
Thank you, Nelson

Linda Roller
A community of friends over the years A chance to learn different poetic prompts from other poet’s. Poetry is shared with artwork at times of the poets, inspiring other’s. The Poetry Postcard fest is meant to be fun & it is, inspiring new poet’s every year It amazes me how dedicated the participating poet’s are for sharing their words. Poetry can be everywhere.

Amy Miller
This will be my 10th year doing the Poetry Postcard Fest, and I’m already looking forward to its mix of structure and intimacy — a unique writing marathon in a world of ever more of them. Having to fit a poem onto a postcard, and knowing that the recipient is waiting for it at the other end, allows me freedom to experiment, surprise, and sometimes weave a sequence of poems into a larger story.

Trilla Nordyke Pando
The delight of reaching to make friend with my words, and the sheer joy of receiving a message of a once-upon-a-stranger reaching out through the mail to me.

Ingrid Bruck
I’ve been participating in PoetryFest for seven years. The postcard art and poems are so often splendid. The month of surprises in my mailbox are pure pleasure!

Jennifer Rood
I just discovered the Poetry Postcard Fest in 2020–the year the pandemic began. This will be my 3rd year, so I am still a newbie. But I can say that having only participated during pandemic years… I have really loved the connection with other people. I enjoy the purposeful intentionality of creating each postcard and poem, which is a gift to a stranger, and I love receiving the gifts from others. This fest makes me look forward to August, and I’m already working on the postcards I will send this year!

Karen Loeb
I love participating in the poetry postcard fest. This will be my 3rd year. I’ve learned so much about letting one small image be the poem. And I love figuring out what image I’ll use on the card—usually a photo I’ve taken to go with the poem.

Daniel Smith
Invited by a fellow beekeeper poet in France to give it a go, Paul Nelson’s spontaneously composed Poetry Postcards seasons have seen me through a complete alpine sonata, six published collections of poems from 2014 when I first became involved, and even open heart surgery (I was taking one of Paul’s famously incredible courses on poetics at the time). I heartily recommend the mind opening potential of writing a poem without editing and sending it down the blue box slide on its way to someone with whom you’ll sure to become friends. Along the way, I have written kernels of greatness and all sorts of beginnings. Recommend without reservation!

Anne Eyries
The Poetry Fest is a prompt, a catharsis, stimulating, sharing, short-term, fun, daring, addictive and refreshingly creative.

Lenore Rosenberg
I’ve only done this for a year, but I’ll be back. An amazing way to keep in touch with poets all over, especially since I’m across the pond. And I’ve heard from people all year. An extraordinary, inspiring experience

Lara Callahan Phelps
At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, the fest has actually changed my life. I’m aware of all things postcard in the world and I picked up a new creative outlet in making my own cards. I never would have thought of that without this group.

Laura Gamache
August is the kindest month.

Abhaya Thomas
For the past 9 summers in August I have let myself wander through the alternate reality that is the Poetry Postcard Fest. It has been more rewarding than any vacation I could have planned for myself. Postcard season has a permanent place in my life now, a journey I look forward to year after year.

Joanne Clarkson
Creativity is feed by the collective soul. I love receiving heart-felt words from writers all over the country – and the world! My own writing, and my daily life, is enriched by the Poetry Postcard Fest which I have participated in for a dozen years. The idea of writing on postcards, which contain snapshot-sized images, is yet another way to get inspired!

Sarah Dickenson Snyder
For the last five years, everyday in August feels like a special day as I walk out to the mailbox, excited to find the gift of a postcard poem. And then the fun of making one everyday, how fun! I’m inspired by the postcards I receive and energized by the ones I write. Thank you for creating this community of poem sharing.

Karen Havholm
This will be my third year. Collecting post-cards throughout the year from various places, when August comes I am prompted to expand my topical repertoire, perhaps get out of a writing rut. My first poem accepted for publication outside my local area was written initially as a postcard poem. So PoPo has been critical to my development and expansion as a beginning poet.

Sophie Graham
I had planned on writing before I saw your message!! Last year was my first and I was thrilled to discover The Postcard Fest. I think about it often, gathering things for the coming summer. One of the wonderful things is the encouragement for new-comers and lack of judgement on cards or writing. I just recently found a tattered water damaged book from 1891 in a barn- Richard Herricks “Lets Go A Maying”. My first though was ” ooo this would be perfect to cut up for the postcards”. I have so much collected I could make postcards for the rest of my life- or at least supply an entire “nursing home” – when I get there!

Linda Engel Amundson
The Poetry Postcard Fest has been a way to reach out to some many people across the country and even the world.

Stacey Jones
An extraordinary summer celebration of all poetic, open to all. Surprising gifts in the mail–exchanging intimacies with strangers. At the same time, an opportunity for daily meditation and reflection before sending the postcard bottles out to sea.

Sigrid Saradunn
In 2015 I discovered the Post Card Fest. Thought I’d try it for one month.
Signed up for 2022 first moment available. I have met some of the most wonderful and supportive poets thru post card exchange … it is a wonderful moment to see a post card in the mail.

Deb Stone
In 2020, I experienced wildfire evacuation, twelves days without power following an ice storm, and months of isolation due to the pandemic. But I kept my eyes on the prize: a month of handwritten (and often handmade) postcards with poems written just for me in the Poetry Postcard Fest.

Diana Elser
Teaches me to pay attention to what’s in front of me & let the words come – no “great thoughts” needed. Discovered collage and let’s me practice in a widespread and appreciative community –

Anita Mortlock
I had no idea that sending a first draft to strangers would be so completely emancipatory. You’ve established a beautifully safe culture in which people can deprivatise their creativity and honour other people’s creativity. It’s really very stunning.

For myself, I’d had a tough year with a severe spine injury etc., that left me feeling isolated. Im usually active at the beach or in my garden or tramping, so it felt devastating. To have all those beautiful postcards arrive in my letterbox was profoundly connecting. They each connected  me to a stranger and the contents took my imagination on a little journey, which often resulted in a another inner creative spark. At a time when my outer life had a paucity of light and movement, the poetry fest helped compensate by provoking a rich inner dynamism. I still have every postcard on the wall today.

Anyway, thank you. Truly thank you. Wahoo to another year of awesomeness!! I can’t wait.

Go well,
Anita