Here are some ways you can spice up your postcard writing habit. I tried them out myself and they're definitely tons of fun! Nerd it out. I think that sense of faraway-ness made connecting a more pressing need. Read them and use them for inspiration for the cards you write after that.I seldom wrote and received postcards back home in Manila, but got hooked when I started traveling around Europe. I can use the previous days template by duplicating it and writing over it, adding the new scan and voila! I am ready for tomorrow. Canada is another country despite Walt Whitman’s best efforts. Out of the country requires more postage, remember.
#How to write a postcard how to
Why can’t some techhead figure out how to do poetry’s linebreaks justice on screens? 8. This is the best system using WordPress I can figure. Jing is a great screen grab program and I like having the linebreaks done perfectly. For people outside North America, that may be 3 months. I often use SoundCloud, but they have no “schedule” feature and I do not want anyone getting a heads-up before they’ve received the poem, so I upload and schedule the post for a month down the line. I like an audio version and have come to putting that on the online post I make of each postcard poem. Have some imagination for the good lord’s sake! Or mow a real lawn. 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. That usually leaves weird indents and other features on the documented version which I love. 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. 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. 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. You can’t get too much on a roll with any postcard poem because it’s a postcard and space is limited. You’ll get another source of potential inspiration when cards start arriving in August during the fest. In one case the postcard had a title and I just used that for my title as well. 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. 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. (Sometimes I do not recognize the link right away.) Sometimes it’s an ekphrastic based on the card’s image. Sometimes the image on the front of the card has nothing to do with the content. 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. I start with the date, where I am, the person to whom I am writing and then the quote. You got the card and you got the quote, write it in. Cheap, yes, but inexpensive too and there are new shots of Seattle since we built stadiums and put up a ferris wheel. 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. I am attracted to them beyond all common sense. As confessed previously, I am a postcard whore. For me so far this year it’s been Maria Baranda, the poeta Mexicana, from the Copper Canyon anthology, Reversible Monuments. Find a phrase that strikes you, that has energy for you. Or, you might want to open to a page at random. Get that book and start reading from the beginning. About whose work (what poet) you’d like to spend more time with.