How to write a postcard poem (Ten Steps)

1. Think intuitively

about whose work (what poet) you’d like to spend more time with. Get that book and start reading from the beginning. Or, you might want to open to a page at random. Find a phrase that strikes you, that has energy for you. For me so far this year it’s been Maria Baranda, the poeta Mexicana, from the Copper Canyon anthology, Reversible Monuments.

2. Find a card. 

You should have a stash of them. As confessed previously, I am a postcard whore. I am attracted to them beyond all common sense. I want to buy them whenever I see them, even cheap tourist cards like the ones I saw at 3rd & Union in downtown Seattle yesterday by the post office. Cheap, yes, but inexpensive too and there are new shots of Seattle since we built stadiums and put up a ferris wheel.

3. You got the card and you got the quote, write it in.

I start with the date, where I am, the person to whom I am writing and then the quote. I always start with the address and then start writing the poem, which is going to one person, the person to whom I am addressing the poem – literally – in two ways. This then, is an epistle. Sometimes a confession. Sometimes the image on the front of the card has nothing to do with the content. (Sometimes I do not recognize the link right away.) Sometimes it’s an ekphrastic based on the card’s image. Our family’s poverty at this time is at the top of my mind and our sense of humor in dealing with it as well as the revelations one gets when you have to improvise and can’t just spend money as usual. I mean we are broke.

4. Start writing the poem.

You’ll get a hit from the phrase, from the person’s home town (a person on the list is from Austin, TX and I thought about Stevie Ray Vaughn) and maybe from the card’s image. In one case the postcard had a title and I just used that for my title as well. You’ll get another source of potential inspiration when cards start arriving in August during the fest. You can’t get too much on a roll with any postcard poem because it’s a postcard and space is limited. You might find that the space limitations make for some interesting linebreaks and rhythms (See below.) Postcards usually have something to do with the here and now anyway, like Jimmy Buffet said: “The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful.”

5. Document.

Sure, these are poems that are to be sent out, but I keep a document file, scan the front of the card, insert the scan into the document and try to get all the line breaks right on the document version. Sometimes I have to compose around printing, but I never duplicate the printed words already on the card, such as the explanation of the scene, or photography credit, onto the document which is my archived version (facsimile) of the poem. That usually leaves weird indents and other features on the documented version which I love. Like Michael McClure, I hate what he calls: “Lawnmower Poetry”  – that which starts on the left hand margin and goes to the right, then starts again. Ugh. Have some imagination for the good lord’s sake! Or mow a real lawn.