Postcard Poem
By Rose Lindsey
With the feeling of movement and motion in the air this early spring, it’s time for a writing prompt that allows us to reflect on where we might be going. This month’s prompt is credited in part to the poets Sean McDowell and Samuel Green, whose yearly trips to Ireland with Seattle U English students came with a myriad of potential poetic forms to try. One of the simplest but most impactful of those is the postcard poem.
It could be said that the postcard poem is best reserved for a big trip abroad, where the sights and sounds are newly entrancing and worth sending home. This isn’t necessarily wrong, but there is much to say about being attuned to one’s own residence city. Regardless of where you are in the world, step into a local storefront and pick up a postcard. Your standard size and make should suffice.
For the rest of the day, keep a short journal list of images that stick with you. This could be any combination of sights, sounds, smells, tastes. Don’t overcomplicate the exercise; just be attentive. Anything that seems to linger for you, write it down. By the end of the day, try to have somewhere between five and ten images written.
As evening rolls in, sit with your list of images, your postcard, and another piece of parchment for the sake of drafting. You’ll notice that the postcard is a relatively small medium for placing your poem, so writing a first draft or two will be critical to fitting your poem on the postcard. To start your poem, use some variation of the following line:
“From [city], I send to you:”
Next, you’re going to write three images, one on each line, that resonate the most from your collected list from today. Essentially, you’re making a list poem. What, to you, exemplifies your experience in this location today? What acts as a painted landscape of the city you’re celebrating? Again, remember the size of the postcard; your language density should be minimal, but your image should still be exacting. Let the image do the explaining for you.
To complete your postcard, write some variation of this ending line:
“If not I, then who?”
With your postcard poem complete, address the postcard to someone you’d like to send it to. Your parents? Some across-the-country friends? A former lover? Whoever it might be, write it down on the side and then find a mailbox to send it off. In a week or two’s time, your chosen recipient will be delighting in the image of the city you’ve painted with words.