Postcard Perdu:The August Poetry Project



by Catherine Giordano

I took a photgraph of the postcards I received.

The August Poetry Project has concluded. I sent 30 postcards and received 20 postcards. The assignment was 31 postcards.  I guess some of my postcards got lost in the mail.  

 

I sent 30 instead of 31 postcards because one of the people on my list was in Ireland. At the beginning of this project I went to the post office and bought 35 34-cent stamps. I looked up the postage for a postcard to Ireland. It was $1.05. I would have had to make a special trip to the post office. I decided if I got a postcard from this person in Ireland, I would make that trip and send one in return. I didn’t get the post-card.   

Most of the post cards I got were regular picture postcards, often with photos depicticting  the state and city of the sender.  Three of them had a hand-drawn picture on them. I knew the sender went to a lot of trouble to do that—I really appreciated that.   

I went to quite a bit of trouble for my postcards. I bought card stock so I could make my own postcards. I used my printer to put a picture on the front on the left; the address was on the right. That left the entire reverse side for my poem. 

 

I had a little bit of an advantage because I used my daily news print poem that I post on my blog News Print Poetry 2012.  I also used the picture that I posted to my blog as the picture for the postcard.

 

No one could doubt that my poems were original poems composed on the day they were sent because they were “ripped from the headlines.” 

The poems were a varied lot on subject matter. Some were great poems that I read over several times to fully appreciate. Some were clever and funny. They were all interesting to read.

 

I hope we have another August Poetry Project next year. 

 

 

P.S.: The title of this piece is a pun on the title of Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost. In French, the title is Paridis Perdu.

 

9/10/12: I got one more postcard on Saturday.