Poetry Postcard Project Wrap Up

I'm still recovering from last week's AWP conference. Thank goodness, other than visiting Boston's Museum of Fine Arts vintage postcard exhibit, I did not have to leave the hotel and conference center. What a blizzard!

Inside at AWP, warm smiles with my friend Danuta.

Outside, nothing warm about Boston last week.

The weather mirrored what was happening inside. The wild crowds swirling through the book fair exhibit halls. Moments of beauty as Derek Walcott and Seamus Heaney read their poems. Finding comforting faces, like Jeannine Atkins, in the bustle.

Thanks to all of you who followed the 44 Postcard Project. You can read about the project's genesis here, Poetry Postcard 1. I was inspired to do a "pay it forward" style birthday project by my friend, California artist Sherry Belul.

And now, the wrap up!

First, I'll list the poems and give links to the posts in chronological order. Then, I'll group them by type: light verse, formal poems, poems of place, and so on.

Postcard 1: "Postcard 1908"
Postcard 2: "Speedway"
Postcard 3: "Aedes Vexans"
Postcard 4: "Thick Skinned"
Postcard 5: "Symmetry"


Postcard 6: "Resolution"
Postcard 7: "You Can't Get My Goat"
Postcard 8: "Pastoral with Hedgehog"
Postcard 9: "Victorian Soap Label"
Postcard 10: "Vera Ellen"

Postcard 11: "Nonchalant"
Postcard 12: "Swimming in the Nile, Age 21"
Postcard 13: "Thinking about Georgia"
Postcard 14: "Places on the Moon"
Postcard 15: "Bird Song"
Postcard 16: "January, Julia"

Postcard 17: "Cutting Gladiole on Our Anniversary"
Postcard 18: "Thrush Lane"
Postcard 19: "Belle Isle"
Postcard 20: "Angry Bird"

Postcard 21: "The Weather of Late is Gray"
Postcard 22: "Every Flavor"
Postcard 23: "Ghost Tour, Williamsburg"
Postcard 24: "Debra Paget"
Postcard 25: "Letter to a Pioneer, from Her Sister"

Postcard 26: "Walter Reed, 1944"
Postcard 27: "To Be Or Sarah Bernhardt"
Postcard 28: "1 Cent Stamp Upside Down"
Postcard 29: "The World's Most Unique Restaurant"
Postcard 30: "Cartoon Boy Meets Cartoon Girl"
Postcard 31: "Groundhog"

Postcard 32: "Airbus A320"
Postcard 33: "Headdress 1955"
Postcard 34: "Honeymoon and High Anxiety"
Postcard 35: "Rebellion"
Postcard 36: "The Day You Quit Me"
Postcard 37: "Nathaniel Hawthorne"
Postcard 38: "February 22"
Postcard 39: "Jug Handle"
Postcard 40: "Alligator Wrestling"
Postcard 41: "Greetings from Fort McClellan"
Postcard 42: "Postcard Cherokee, NC"
Postcard 43: "This Side for Correspondence"
Postcard 44: "The Task at Hand"

It's overwhelming to look at the poems listed that way. But -- to think -- I've already climbed that mountain!

Here are the poems grouped by topic:




Celebrities (10, 13, 24, 27, 37, 44)
Ekphrastic Poems (12, 13)
Family and Memory Poems (8, 12, 33, 38, 39)
Feminist Poems (7, 27, 35, 44)
Form Poems (11, 17, 32, 36, 37, 38, 41, 43)
Funny Poems (3, 19, 21, 29, 40, 43, 44)
K-3 Friendly (15, 20, 29)
Light Verse (15, 19, 21, 28)
Mythology (3, 9)
Nature, Bugs and Animals (5, 14, 15, 18, 20, 31, 40)
Occasional Poems (16, 31, 38, 43)
Persona Poems (7, 11, 25, 28, 30, 44)
Poems about History (4, 25, 26, 33, 41)
Poems of Place (2, 6, 8, 14, 18, 23, 25, 26, 34, 39, 40)
Poems about Postcards (1, 16, 28, 32, 42)
Poems in the Style of Other Poets (12, 22, 36)
Political Poems (6, 26, 28, 41, 42)
Relationships (1, 7, 14, 16, 17, 22, 30, 34, 35, 43)

I'm pleased to announce that a few of the poems have been or will be published. "Pastoral with Hedgehog" was accepted for the anthology Two Countries, which focuses on first general Americans and people who immigrated to the U.S. as children.

"Greetings from Fort McClellan" appeared on the current events poetry site New Verse News.

And a postcard poem written post-44 (#45) was accepted to Barely South Review. The title is "Eyes on the Back of My Head."

Where were the postcards sent?  You can read a list at last week's Poetry Friday post, the project finale.

What's next? Participating in March Madness Poetry at Think Kid, Think! You can check out my first round poem (remember to vote) here. My assigned word was that very stand-up bon mot, "perpendicular."

Poetry Friday: Postcard Project Finale

It’s Poetry Friday. Today, we bid a fond “see you later, alligator” to the 44 Postcard Project. 

From "The Postcard Age: Selections from
the Leonard A. Lauder Collection"

I’m checking in from the AWP Conference in Boston. When I arrived on Wednesday, the first thing I did was hoof it to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts to check out an exhibit of vintage postcards.

While I was looking at a postcard from Skegness, England – the beach town where my family used to vacation – a woman in the gallery struck up a conversation.

My grandparents once owned a home in Skegness.
From "The Postcard Age"

She turned out to know the owner of the vintage postcard collection, Leonard K. Lauder (as in Estee). I told her about my poetry postcard project and she had some insights into the exhibit. Fascinating!

How am I feeling, now that I’ve completed all 44 postcard poems? Like this:

The Task at Hand

If I attacked
each daily chore
with Wonder Woman’s

musculature,

jetting, red-heeled

here to there
in blue, starry

underwear,

I would deserve

a gold tiara

and bullet-

stopping cuffs.
I would crush tasks

in my able hands

and wonder

have I done

enough.

Laura Shovan

Postcard Information:

Sensation Comics No. 26

February 1944 │ Artist: Harry G. Peter

© DC Comics

From The Art of Vintage DC Comics: 100 Postcards, published by Chronicle Books. © 2010 DC Comics.

Yesterday, my poetry card was full at the AWP Conference. I attended a session about the Afghan Women Writing Project. Talk about Wonder Women -- they are super poets and super brave. (They are looking for mentors. Find out more here.)

Later in the day, I went to a panel on verse novels, which included Rita Dove. Her Sonata Mulattica has been on my to-read list for several years, since Dove spoke about it on the Diane Rehm Show.

This verse novel by Dove is about violinist
George Bridgetower, a contemporary and
friend of Beethoven.

The Thursday evening keynote was poets Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott.

I’m going to have to wrap up the postcard project when things are a little calmer. Next week, I’ll post a cheat sheet, listing the poems in groups based on their themes, as well as providing links to each of the poems by number.

For now, here’s some data on where the 44 postcard poems traveled:

From "The Postcard Age"

Twelve states: California (3 cards), Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maryland (28 cards), Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia.

And three countries: China, Italy and Scotland.

Am I ready to quit? Not 100%. I plan to continue writing postcard poems, but will shift to one or two a week for the rest of 2013.

Postcards have worked their hypnotic effect on me.

Today’s Poetry Friday host is my dear pal Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe. Stop by and leave a little greeting, or a link to your poetry post.

Poetry Postcard 42: Tourists

Greetings from Boston! I was supposed to fly from Baltimore this morning to attend the AWP Conference, but with snow on its way, I got out of Dodge early.

www.postcardcollector.org

My friend, novelist Danuta Hinc, and I arrived last night. Whew! That was good thinking. Our original flight has already been cancelled. Hubby is home with the kids today.

With extra time in Boston, I get to be a tourist today. At the top of my must-see list is the vintage postcard exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts.

Tourism has a double edge in my mind. When I was a college student at NYU, we used to avoid midtown Manhattan on the weekends. Why? Tourists! My friends and I were “real” New Yorkers. Tourists were people to avoid.

From Ephemeral New York

I’ve had good and bad experiences as a tourist. I love London, but have witnessed anti-American sentiment there. In Egypt, I witnessed local men sexually harassing a young Asian girl who must have been a tourist. My one visit to Israel was a lifetime highlight, but included an incident when we drove into the wrong neighborhood and someone threw a bottle at our van.

Postcard #42 addresses this aspect of tourism – the tension between “native” and visitor.

Indian Family – Cherokee Indian Reservation, Cherokee, N. C. 257

Photo by W. M. Cline

Postcard: Cherokee, N. C.

The woman’s fringed dress and beaded sash.

The man’s feathered headdress, blue tie.

The child between them holds a tomahawk

made of wood and stone, his fingers loose

on the handle. The man’s hand closes

around his son’s waist, as if the child might bolt

out of frame. The boy looks into the camera−

only he. A photographer from Standard Souvenirs

and Novelties has come to the reservation

to get this shot. The day is bright.

Shadows move on the teepee behind them.

Laura Shovan

Postcard Information

"The Cherokees today number of 3000 on the reservation here. They are descendants of those who hid in the Smokies when the Cherokee removal to Oklahoma began in 1838."

PUBLISHED BY STANDARD SOUVENIRS & NOVELTIES, INC., KNOXVILLE, TENN.

Postcard lovers, here is a website for you. At Collective History, you'll find virtual postcards. Many catalog important historical events. Not all are kid friendly, so preview first. These images would make great prompts for writing.

I am taking tomorrow off for AWP, so there will be no new post. If you’re at the conference, find me at table X13. I’m hoping to attend Ellen Hopkins and Holly Thompson’s panel on YA verse novels. Here is the information:

Event Title: Poetry Serving Story Serving Teens: Verse Novels for Young Adults
Participants: Holly Thompson, Ellen Hopkins, David Levithan, Mariko Nagai, Samantha Schutz
Date: Saturday, March 9
Time: 1:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Location: Room 110, Hynes Convention Center

This week, I received an ARC of Holly’s new novel, The Language Inside, in the mail. Look for an Author Amok interview with Holly later this month.

Friday is the big Poetry Postcard Project wrap-up post. I promise the final poem will be SUPER (hint, hint).

Poetry Postcard #41: Greetings from Fort McClellan

Of all the poetry postcards, #41 had the greatest emotional effect on me. The postcard led  me to uncover a secret, one that I found profoundly disturbing.

"Beautiful Residences along Kingston Pike, Knoxville, Tenn."

But before I explain, poet Dan Kagan has been recommending the website Post Secret for all you postcard fans. Maybe you'll find inspiration in one of the secrets written on the back of a postcard and shared on the site.

This used postcard came to me from children’s author and poet Irene Latham, who blogs at Live Your Poem.

Cancelled January 17, 1944, in Anniston, Alabama.

It reads: "Greetings from Fort McClellan. This is a really beautiful camp. I found George in excellent health. Tell you more when I get home. Love, Louise."

After reading the message, I thought my best source of inspiration would be research on Fort McClellan. I would never learn who George was, but I could invent a soldier, maybe just graduated from boot camp in 1944. That invented story might make a good poem.

There wasn’t much information on Wikipedia, so I went to the next recommended site. The blog title was "If You Went Through Ft. McClellan, Alabama... I want to hear from you."

I read the post and over 100 comments, most of them from McClellan vets. What I learned on this site  stunned me.

Fort McClellan photo http://www.mcclellan.army.mil/Info.asp

Rather than write about Fort McClellan’s history, I wove together a found poem. It is constructed from the postcard greeting and portions of a few comments from Susan Katz Keating's blog post.

The poem was published last month by the current events poetry journal New Verse News. I’ll post the opening stanzas, then the link to the full poem.

Greetings from Fort McClellan, 1944-1995

This is a really beautiful camp.
I found George in excellent health.

Love,_____

                                    Please help.

I was stationed at Fort McClellan.

I have developed a symptom of passing out.

Doctors called it "Syncope."

None of them could figure out

what caused it.

Hi my name is: _____

I went through Basic training

in Echo 1 company. We had to go through

that building they called the Gas Chamber.

Does anybody know what type of gas

or chemical was in there?

I want to hear from you.

We were exposed to toxic substances,

big time. The McClellan Cocktail:

depleted Uranium, Sarin gas, mustard gas

Read the rest at New Verse News. Thanks to NVN editor James Penha for finding the perfect postcard to accompany my poem.

The McClellan vets have been trying for years to have their health issues recognized. The neighboring town of Anniston, Alabama was a Monsanto factory site. Monsanto manufactured PCBs in Anniston. It is documented that the company dumped chemicals, affecting the water and ground in Anniston. Because of their health problems related to the spills, the citizens of Anniston sued Monsanto and won a settlement.

60 Minutes called Anniston "America's Most Toxic Town."

However, the settlement does not cover veterans who lived at Fort McClellan, drinking and bathing in that same water, training on that ground, to say nothing of the chemical exposure that reportedly took place there.

McClellan closed in 1999.

A new bill to create a McClellan registry was introduced to the House of Representatives in January. It is titled "H.R. 411: Fort McClellan Health Registry Act." Passing the bill is a first step in helping the McClellan vets.

I encourage you to sign a petition, supporting the bill, at Change.Org.

The bill has been given only a 3% chance of passing. Opponents claim that these are "welfare vets" whose claims are unrelated to Monsanto, Anniston and Fort McClellan.

For more information:

"Poisoned Patriots of Ft. McClellan" at Law Enforcement Today

"Fort McClellan, Monsanto, PCBs & Me" at Daily Kos.

An article about an earlier version of H.R. 411, at UPI.

Poetry Postcard 39: Cream for your coffee or tea?

I love the randomness of this postcard.

The roads made me think of how busy life is, especially this week as I prepare to go to the annual AWP Conference. (You’ll find me at table X13, representing Little Patuxent Review. Stop by to say hello!)

We use such odd terms for highway constructions – terms that have nothing to do with speed. Cloverleaf. Jug handle. Artery. I was thinking about that and the trees in the photograph, which reminded me of my parents’ home in the Catskill Mountains.

Jug Handle

The jug is small,

a creamer glazed blue,
chip in its rounded lip.
The potter who lives

down my parents’ street
spun it on her wheel.

The handle seems

an afterthought,
the clay a bowed piece

of pulled taffy

hardened in the kiln.
They spend summers

in the mountains−

the potter, my parents−

where a jug handle

is what my mother uses
to pick up the old creamer

when someone has stopped in

and said yes, he has time

for a cup of coffee.

Laura Shovan

In reality, the handmade jug in the poem
lives with me, not at my mother's house.

Speaking of tea and postcards, both figure prominently in one of the most inventive children’s books we own, The Jolly Pocket Postman.

It was written and illustrated by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, first published in the U.S. in 1995 by Little, Brown and Company. The U.K. edition (also 1995) published by William Heinemann Ltd.

Think of this book as a mailman’s guide to your favorite, classic children’s stories, with a little taste of Griffin and Sabine thrown in to keep it interesting.

The first page is an envelope. It’s addressed: “For You.” Open it!

Inside is a postcard. The poem on the back begins,

“Dear Reader, pleased to meet you;

 Welcome to this book.”

The greeting explains that the pocket you have opened also contains a little magnifying glass, which you'll find in its own envelope.

Then the story, written in verse, gets going.

"Once upon a summer’s morning,

The Jolly Postman woke up yawning,

Cooked his breakfast, fed the dog,

Read the paper, kissed the frog…"

We follow the postman as he makes deliveries to Rapunzel, gets bonked on the head by a giant rattle falling from the sky (he may have passed a little too close to that beanstalk), and slides down a familiar rabbit hole. There, we find a spiral message.

Every other page or so is a pocket. One has a map entitled “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.” Old McDonald’s Farm, The Emerald City, The Neverland, Mr. McGregor’s Garden, and The Land of Counterpane are some of the places featured on the tiny map.

Several other pockets contain stories within the story, for which you will need that magnifying glass.

A story within the story, literally.

And an even tinier story within that!

The book ends with a postwoman delivering a special message to our hero.

The Jolly Pocket Postman is out of print, but you can find used copies. For the price of a new copy, you could send a whole lot of postcards.

Postcard Information:

SOCO GAP

Scene Soco Gap, at the intersection of the Blue Ridge Parkway and U.S. 19, is the marked boundary of the Qualla Reservation of the Cherokee Indians and was the gateway to the last Cherokee stronghold in Western North Carolina.

©1969 Aerial Photography Services, Inc., Charlotte, N.C.

47033-C

dp MADE BY DEXTER PRESS, INC.

WEST NYACK, NEW  YORK

Pub. by Aerial Photography Services, Inc., P.O. Box 27112, Charlotte, N.C. 28208

Poetry Friday: Alligator Wrestling, An Invitation

Happy Poetry Friday!

The Poetry Postcard Project is nearly done. Look for the grand finale next Friday.

I’ve been wrestling with the next Author Amok blog project. How will we celebrate National Poetry Month, 2013?

You can still order your NPM poster at Poets.Org.

First, enjoy a wrestling poem. Then, I am sending you a National Poetry Month invitation (no toothy reptiles involved).

The super-saturated colors on this postcard inspired me. Not to wrestle with an alligator, but to write some light verse.

Alligator Wrestling

Tourist spots

would have

cold-weather

dwellers think

an alligator’s mouth

pulled wide is green

and juicy pink.

A row of teeth,

thin and white,

to separate thick skin

from what’s inside.

It looks so much

like watermelon rind,

who would not

lean in to take

a little bite?

Laura Shovan

Postcard Information:

Front:

Alligator Wrestling, Tropical Hobbyland, Miami, Fla.

Back:

ALLIGATOR WRESTLING K 9267

Henry Nelson, world’s champion alligator wrestler, gives daily exhibitions of this ancient Seminole sport, at Tropical Hobbyland Indian Village, N.W. 27^th Avenue at 15^th Street, Miami. The pit at Tropical Hobbyland contains fifty alligators, and a dozen crocodiles, yet Henry will go in the water with them entirely unarmed.

APPROVED AAA ATTRACTION

Novelti-Craft Products Co., Olympia Bldg., Miami, Fla.

A “COLOURPICTURE” PUCLICATION, BOSTON 15, MASS., U. S. A.

Now that we've gotten Mr. Toothy out of the way...

Announcing Author Amok’s Fourth Annual

National Poetry Month Project:

WELCOME TO THE TECHNOVERSE

Call me a nerd, a geek, a SF buff. I won’t argue with you.

Author Amok, is it just coincidence that a
classic Star Trek episode is titled "Amok Time?"

Author Amok is boldly going where only the most high tech poets have gone before…to the TechnoVerse and beyond.

I'm looking for 20 intrepid explorers to guest blog in April. 

Do you have a favorite poetry app, writing support program, or website you use for poetic inspiration or interesting vocab? What about a savvy poetry list-serv, or a poetry blog that’s always up on the latest trends? Send me a message at mrspoems@gmail.com.

Uncle Amok wants YOU! to seek out new sites and new rhymifications.

Speaking of tech-savvy poetry, I hope you’ll follow me and many other Poetry Friday regulars during the March Madness Poetry Tournament. Ed DeCaria knows how to work the ‘net – his site Think Kid, Think! is both high-tech and user-friendly.

Poetry Friday is brought to you today by Julie Larios at the Drift Record. Hmm... Julie, your blog's name would make a great title for a Star Trek episode.

Be seeing you… in the TechnoVerse.