For Immediate Release June 28, 2021
SPLAB’s 15th Annual Poetry Postcard Fest:
A Tribute to di Prima and McClure
Registration for the 15th Poetry Postcard Fest ends July 18, 2021 at popo.submittable.com The fest in 2020 featured 544 participants from 11 countries, 47 states and 3 Canadian provinces. In 2021 the fest will honor legendary poets Diane di Prima and Michael McClure. www.popo.cards.
The Poetry Postcard Fest process is simple. Participants register online for a nominal fee. Starting July 4, registered participants receive a list of 32 registered poets. Participants agree to compose and send to another poet on the list an original poem composed on a postcard, delivered by regular mail.
Two poets who had tremendous influence on USAmerican culture and poetry in the second half of the 20th century, both died in 2020, were good friends to each other and each had an influence on the Poetry Postcard Fest.
Diane di Prima, whose work with the Diggers had her at the forefront of a very active San Francisco counter-culture in the thick of the 60s and 70s, working with the Diggers alongside such members as Peter Berg, who is the prime force behind the notion of bioregionalism, a huge influence in our work. She came to the Auburn SPLAB on one occasion to give a reading (where she read her remarkable and prescient poem Rant) be interviewed, and to conduct a workshop.
Michael McClure participated in several SPLAB events, starting with being interviewed in October 1995 and extolling the wisdom of Projective Verse: aka Composition by Field. McClure, a member of the Beat Generation which he called the “Literary Wing of the Environmental Movement.” More on di Prima and McClure is available here: https://www.poetrypostcardfestexhibit.org/tribute
An essay about the fest and its debt to the aestheic of Black Mountain College can be read here: http://www.blackmountainstudiesjournal.org/nelson-lee-postcards/
An online gallery, which debuted this year can be viewed here: https://www.poetrypostcardfestexhibit.org
SPLAB is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization founded in December 1993by poet Paul E Nelson. www.splab.org and based in Seattle, WA.
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