POPO

Fairy Tale World 2022

1
Once upon a time, wonder.  Inside narrative, it becomes lost, leaves only invisible tracks.  Who will see them, find them, save them?  Always a long journey to the center of the spiral.

where
is happily?
nowhere to be

seen–
and after?
suddenly it engulfs

2
Over rainbows, they said, somewhere, lies the road to Nirvana.  Don’t be fooled, they said, by the enticing Road to Ruin.  But where to begin?  Where, even, is the rainbow?  I appeal to the mystery hidden inside darkness.

track
my journey
by the moon

Two quadrilles for dVerse, where Merril provided the word track. I was inspired to write these by Lisa at Tao Talk, who used “once upon a time” as the beginning of one of her troikus for her poetry postcards this year. I’ve illustrated the quadrilles with some of my own poetry postcards from 2021, where I printed some of my moon photos and gave them words.

Poetry Postcard Fest 2022

For POPO 2022 I used postcards with buttons and altered them with text. I sent out the full 31 from my list, plus a few to friends, and received 23 list postcards and 4 from friends. My poems were all in shadorma form, taking clues from the front of the card.

There was a nice assortment of both images and poems. But the best part is making the cards themselves, and each day spontaneously composing a poem for each one, and then putting on the stamp and mailing them.

wandering
through lost synapses
thought journeys
dreamspiral
into narratives that end
open, unsequenced

you sought 1 special story
and after two years of psychic wandering
the boy said: 3 is my lucky number—what’s yours?

You can read more about the Poetry Postcard Fest, which takes place in August of every year, here. I’ve already signed up for 2023, but you have until July to register. I highly recommend it.

POPO 2020 part 3

rooted red
the colors spill out
confettied
above ground
dancing towards the sun singing
a chorus of blooms

Last year I participated in POPO the August POetry POstcard Fest–where the challenge is to send a different postcard with a poem you’ve composed for each day in August, 31 in all. I meant to post 2 cards every few weeks and finish up just before POPO 2021. But in my usual fashion, I’m only now posting the third pair.

I decided to do shadormas, as they would fit easily on the back of a postcard, and to connect them through repeating part of the last line of each poem to the first line of the poem for the next day. The last line of the poem from day 4 was “visible, rooted”

a chorus
of absurdity
reaches for
the empty
mind to fill it with visions
of nothing at all

I did not have a theme for the actual postcards I made in 2020, but this year I’m going to continue with the moon photos I did for the Kick-About. You don’t need to make or alter your own postcards, though–at least one I received last year was just a post office postcard with a poem on it. Or you can just buy 3l postcards and write a poem on the front or back or both.

A number of people last year expressed interest in participating this year, so here’s the link if you want to sign up. It’s not only a fun creative challenge, but you end up with 31 interesting postcard poems from all over the United States and the world. Twenty days until registration closes.

https://popo.cards/

And here’s my original post with a photo of some of the postcards I received. They actually trickled in for several months afterwards.

POPO 2020 part 2

many books
speak of the one way–
what is real?
close your eyes
and listen to what you see–
try to remember

This year I participated in POPO the August POetry POstcard Fest–where the challenge is to send a different postcard with a poem you’ve composed for each day in August, 31 in all. This is the second installment, with cards 3 and 4.

I decided to do shadormas, as they would fit easily on the back of a postcard, and to connect them through repeating part of the last line of each poem to the first line of the poem for the next day. The last line of the poem from day 2 was “to fill many books”

remember
the interior
spiraling
while the out
side remined calm, in
visible, rooted

You can see cards 1 and 2 here. To be continued…

POPO 2020

each day be
side itself with all
fresh waves of
surprise—all
gathered believing in be
longing everywhere

This year I participated in POPO the August POetry POstcard Fest–where the challenge is to send a different postcard with a poem you’ve composed for each day in August, 31 in all. After you register, you receive a list of names in your participant group, and go down the list until you get back to your own.

I decided to do shadormas, as they would fit easily on the back of a postcard, and to connect them through repeating part of the last line of each poem to the first line of the poem for the next day. I made over 40 postcards in anticipation, and sent some to my friends as well as to the people on my list.

everywhere
what we see is what
we don’t know
and more than
enough remains unanswered
to  fill many books

I received 27 cards back. The mail has been unreliable as we all know, so that’s a pretty good percentage. I enjoyed both the giving and the receiving and looked forward each morning to picking out a card and composing a poem. Below is a photo of all the cards that were sent to me. I’ll be posting the ones I sent, along with the poems, from time to time, and at the end I’ll tie them all together in a multiverse shadorma chain.

I highly recommend it! You can already sign up for next year, but you have until next summer if, like me, you wait until the last minute to decide these things.

I’m linking this to dVerse open link night, where Mish is hosting, in the hopes that it will inspire some pub members to participate in 2021.