I attended a workshop on Saturday. I took a break from being the Cupertino Poet Laureate, from being a poet/teacher with California Poets in the Schools, I went back to school and was just a poet who needed to remember her muse. It was heaven.

The workshop was hosted by the Stanford School of Medicine Program in Arts, Humanities and Medicine. The workshop leader was Sharon Bray. We did six writing exercises in eight hours. It was exhausting. But revelatory. And I made new friends. And the lunch was yummy.

One of the exercises, which I can safely snatch and share here (I don’t think Sharon would feel it is her patented idea) was to write a poem on a postcard. She had us sit outside, walk around, and then write on the postcards she brought. Of course, she infused the exercise with her signature calm, love, humor and wisdom. But there are other (many!) postcard poetry spaces in the world; here are a few:

• Postcard Poems and Prose (great images, still accepting submissions)
• Postcard Poets (site closed, but a very cool idea and a Tumblr blog with past poems)
• Hoot Review — a literary magazine on a postcard
• Poets via Post — a selection of advice on postcards by some of our greatest poets

Anyhow — it’s an easy challenge. Look outside your window and write a tiny poem that fits on a postcard. Then send it to someone you love. Be sure to take a photo of it first. Share it here with us! I’ll post mine in a few days.

Poem postcard image by David Lehman on the poets.org site.

June 8, 2014 Note: Here’s a link to my collection of postcard poems. Enjoy!