Postcard Poems

When I gave a workshop to the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation summer students at Colorado College, I handed out postcards with stamps on them and showed the art students how they can easily combine their visual art talent with words and send beautiful images and inspiring words to friends and family. The results of what they created were lovely and we mailed them out. One student mailed her postcard poem to me. She had visited an old Hispanic church in the San Luis Valley and wrote this on her card: "this church feels like soup, blurred, and engulfed in nostalgia, pious dust." This is an easy way to share your poems -- make your own postcard poems. Write out one of your short poems on a postcard, get crayons or colored pencils, or pen, (colored gel pens are great for this) and put a colored border on the card etc, small flowers in the corners, whatever, and mail it to a friend. Be as creative as you want, glue small images you can cut from magazines, even cut out words and paste them on. You can color the entire side of the card and them hand print your poem on it. Each postcard poem is a one-of-a-kind artwork and gift to your recipient. I buy cover stock at Office Depot and cut my own post cards to size so they are within the .28 cent postage size, 4.25 x 5.5. If you want to make a bigger postcard go to USPS.com for size limits and postage required, bigger ones cost .44 cents to mail. Use one whole side for your poem and artwork and one side for your address and stamp. If you want to send a message as well as the poem, draw a vertical line down the middle of one side and on the left, write to your recipient, and on the right, stamp and address just like a picture tourist post card. Be sure to send one to yourself too. Cheers.