From Brendan McBreen:
for those of you familiar with the August Poetry Postcard series
you may know that it was started by Paul Nelson then passed to Lana Ayers
but this year Lana is busy with school work (fiction writing) and other projects
so I have been asked to compile the mailing lists this year
for those not familiar
the August Poetry Postcard fest works as such:
each participant receives a list of 31 names and addresses of other poets
and each day in August you write a poem on a postcard and send it to the person that follows your name on the list
so if you are number 4 on the list you start by mailing a postcard poem to number 5, and when you get to 31 you loop back to 1, 2, and 3
the idea is to respond to a postcard and poem you receive but send the response to the next person on the list
and the others on the list will do the same
in past years we have had participants from all over the globe, so be sure to be aware of international postage if it applies to your list
you can collect the postcards you send from anywhere, drug stores are good, Goodwill is a good place to find postcards, some people create their own postcards too, nice postcards are nice but the poetry is the purpose
also it is usually a good idea to begin sending postcards on the last few days of July just to be sure that people receive their cards by August
finally!
for those who wish to participate:
please email me your name and mailing address and email address stripedwaterpoets@gmail.co
include August Postcard Poetry in the subject line
please note that I will not use any addresses for any reason other than this year’s Poetry Postcard fest
and I urge everyone else to do likewise
Thank you!
Brendan McBreen
—
Striped Water Poets
Facebook Group Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/17361938720/10150935992473721
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Well, groups of 31 poets. We had over 150 in 2012.
Brendan, Reconsider sending one full page of everyone’s mailing address which leaves a lot of room for “scam and spam” opportunists. Keep list to 31 names like the fest was set up in the past. If you want more subscribers, suggest you think on the side of poet’s privacy issues.
Let us know soon.
Sandra,
Paul here. Limiting the lists to 31 does not prohibit people from signing up on each list, so your concern is not “solved” with the extra work required to keep separate lists. We assume all poets participating will refrain from spamming the list. We’d like it if they did not post their poems on-line in August and that they will write their poems spontaneously onto each card, but we have no control of these matters. We are all volunteers doing this, so making it as easy as possible to administer is our goal. Making one long list gives those of us who would like to, the option of sending additional cards to others who would have (in previous years) ended up on different lists. We hope you’ll participate anyway, but that’s how we’re doing it this year.
Good luck,
Paul
Hi Sandra,
I have been asking around, and of the dozen and a half I’ve talked to or emailed only one prefers the short lists, most of them prefer the single list, and some are indifferent.
As of this post, there are 145 names on the list and still three and a half weeks to go in July. Last year we had 167 names. I do not see that the format of the list deters people from signing up.
This is only my second time compiling the postcard list, so I am sure there is plenty for me to learn. I have participated in the poetry postcard project since 2007 and have not seen any problems with spam or scams. In the years I have participated, sometimes the list was sent out as short individual lists, and other times as a single long list. Last year I tried sending out various short lists and came into all kinds of problems. This year am trying the single list and we will see how it works out.
best wishes
Brendan