Poetry Friday: Poetry Postcard 38

Happy birthday, G.W!

It’s a big day. The 44 Postcard Project is almost complete, as I mail out the 44^th vintage postcard with its poem today.

I’ll be blogging poetry postcards for another week or two. It feels too soon to do a major reflection about the project. The short version: Writing a new poem nearly every day was more fun than I expected. Writing in response to antique postcards, with their random images and subjects, has stretched me as a poet and a person.

Today is also my 44^th birthday. Here is the card for today, postcard #38.

Happy birthday to our many Piscean Poetry Friday bloggers!

When I read at the Washington Printmaker’s Gallery in December, I invited audience members to sign up for a postcard. A man in the audience told me that his sister and I share a birthday. Would I send her a poem for 2/22? Sure!

February 22

The school photographer

always called me Martha

before the click. It was a trick

to make kids smile,

mistaking each girl with a name

dowdy as mothballs.

We’d bubble in the hall

over who was Doris, Edith,

Josephine. I confess

I wondered why he chose

for me the name

of George Washington’s wife.

Was it written on my lips:

I shared the president’s birthday?

I took this as a sign. How else

could a stranger know me

the way the crow knew me –

the one that haunted our yard.

I heard it when I hid

in the dry leaves. Laura,

Laura, the crow would caw

if I listened very hard.

Laura Shovan

UPDATE: Maybe I wasn't such a weird kid after all. Our local PBS station has been airing a documentary about crows. Scientists have proven that they can recognize individual human faces.

I’ve been keeping tabs on the poetry postcards’ travels. They have gone out to twelve states and three foreign countries. Maryland, naturally, received the most postcards (28 of the 44).

I’ll post a full list of states and countries, along with a list of all the postcard poems, when I blog about postcard #44.

Who else is born on 2/22? Glad you asked! Some of my favorites are:

poet Edna St. Vincent Millay
(great biography, by the way);

Broadway actress Lea Salonga
(she originated the role of Eponine in Les Miz);

actor Kyle MacLachlan
(my celeb crush since Twin Peaks aired,
he hosted my all-time
favorite episode of Saturday Night Live),

and philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.

You'll find a full list of famous 2/22s at this site. Take a minute to search your own birthday. You're sure to find some surprise birthday buddies.

Who's hosting today's Poetry Friday party? It's Sheri Doyle! I can't promise that she'll have cake, but there will be a buffet of poetry posts for you to sample.

Here's a birthday gift from me to you, Lea Salonga singing "On My Own."