Poetry Postcard Fest
An annual 56 day self-guided workshop in spontaneous composition and community-building.
Poetry Postcard Fest
An annual 56 day self-guided workshop in spontaneous composition and community-building.
How it Works
The fest is a self-guided 56 day workshop in spontaneous composition and community. Click to learn more about How it Works.
Poetry Postcard Fest News
517. Blue Demons
Another one of my 2014 photographs turned into postcard, this one begins the summer-long fascination with chicory. Once identified (thank you Carol Blackbird Edson), I began to eat as many of the...
Judy Kleinberg’s 2015 Poetry Postcard Wrapup
Even though the clock is ticking down until next year's August Poetry Postcard Fest (Year Ten!), some folks have not fully completed their 2015 tasks, including the intrepid Judy Kleinberg. She just...
516. Breakfast Special
More Salish art (one of my favorite card images) and a little piece of Wanda Coleman’s fire, in which you don’t eliminate clichés, per se, but “twist” them. Also, a nod to two different Benny...
515. Other Demons
In this latest 2015 August Poetry Postcard poem, again a great Kyger quote which makes me think of field poetics, a subject her friend Robert Duncan had a thing or two to say about. Also a reference...
514. Supple in Seattle
More Salish art and a poem resulting from what the postcard fest instructions suggested since year 1, that is “something of the here and now” should/could get into the poem. That’s what postcards...
513. Summer Desk Avalanche
The latest poem from the 2015 August Poetry Postcard Fest. (See other poems here.) A Georgia O’Keeffe card and great epigraph from Joanne Kyger, the composition of which affected the content. (Wait...
Poetry Postcard Fest: Black Mountain Style
I was delighted to team up with postcarder (with a new book!) Margaret Lee for an essay that has been published in The Journal for Black Mountain College Studies, Volume 12. (pdf) Postcard poets...
2021, Year 15, Tribute to di Prima, McClure
Have you seen the gorgeous Online Poetry Postcard Fest Exhibit yet? Thank you Kristen Ryberg and James Gaynor for making it a reality. On that site you can read that the 15th year of the Poetry...
Voices of the Grieving Heart
Veteran postcard poet NanLeah Mick is helping with this poetry event: Voices of the Grieving Heart A Poetry Reading by Six Contributors with Mike Bernhardt, Kris Kington-Barker and John Fox ~ Free...
A 5-week online poetry workshop designed for folks with a wide variety of experience with poetry and with a keen interest in spirituality and the occult. This course is more than a workshop; it’s a journey into the unknown, where you’ll discover hidden messages and ideas both from within yourself and the outside world. Through chance, divination, games, and ritual, you’ll learn to trust your intuition and let your spontaneity guide your writing.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
September 7 – October 5, 2025
Poet as Radio: Writing from Intuition
Poet as Radio: Writing from Intuition
A 5-week online poetry workshop designed for folks with a wide variety of experience with poetry and with a keen interest in spirituality and the occult. This course is more than a workshop; it’s a journey into the unknown, where you’ll discover hidden messages and ideas both from within yourself and the outside world. Through chance, divination, games, and ritual, you’ll learn to trust your intuition and let your spontaneity guide your writing.
Sundays 3-5:00 PM Pacific Time
September 7 – October 5, 2025
Robert Duncan’s H.D. Book: The Roots of Modernism with Michael Boughn
We will read The H.D. Book together over 5 weeks. It’s a big book, so that’s a lot of reading, but he’s a joy to read, so it’s not exactly onerous. I will probably talk a bit at the beginning of each session and then open it up to the participants. I wrote the introduction. You should read it first. We can talk about that as well. The goal here is to let Duncan lead us into an encounter with the marvelous as we follow his encounter with H.D. as it led him into the depths of history, mind, and soul.
Wednesdays 5:30-7:30 PM Pacific Time
September 17 – October 15, 2025
Robert Duncan’s H.D. Book: The Roots of Modernism with Michael Boughn
We will read The H.D. Book together over 5 weeks. It’s a big book, so that’s a lot of reading, but he’s a joy to read, so it’s not exactly onerous. I will probably talk a bit at the beginning of each session and then open it up to the participants. I wrote the introduction. You should read it first. We can talk about that as well. The goal here is to let Duncan lead us into an encounter with the marvelous as we follow his encounter with H.D. as it led him into the depths of history, mind, and soul.
Wednesdays 5:30-7:30 PM Pacific Time
September 17 – October 15, 2025
Life as Rehearsal for the Poem and Poetics as Cosmology 2025 Workshops
A five week online (Zoom) workshop best suited for continuing participants and more experienced poets (open to open form) in workshops facilitated by Cascadia Poetics Lab and Poetry Postcard Fest Co-Founder Paul E Nelson. Participate in reading and discussion of foundational essays, interviews, listening and other assignments, as well as spontaneous poetry composition exercises. In Fall 2025, we’ll explore a short history of Projective/Outside North American Poetry, focused on:
Whitman & Dickinson
- Whitman & Dickinson
- WCW & Lorine Niedecker
- Olson & Levertov
- McClure & di Prima
- Daphne Marlatt, Brenda Hillman, & Nate Mackey
Life as Rehearsal for the Poem (LARFP)
- Sundays, 3-5 PM PDT
- November 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30, 2025
Poetics as Cosmology (PAC)
- Thursdays, 3-5 PM PDT
- October 30, November 6, 13, 20, and December 4, 2025
How the Poetry Postcard Fest Works
Abhaya Thomas Postcard
How the Poetry Postcard Fest Works
Abhaya Thomas Postcard