about postal poetry
Welcome to Postal Poetry, a fantabulous showcase for collaboratively and individually created poetry postcards.
How can you submit, you ask? It’s as easy as one, two, three. (And four, five, six … oh no, lost count!)
1. Fancy up *one side* of a postcard (or postcards, up to a reasonable number) and write, type or otherwise affix a poem onto it. Original poems and artwork only, please!
2. Only send work on postcards or postcard-proportioned thingies. Other formats will not be accepted.
3. Send the completed postcard to the project via email or snail mail. To email the piece, send it to postalpoetry (at) gmail (dot) com. If you prefer to send it by post (what a concept, eh?), here’s the address:
Postal Poetry
11410 NE 124th St. #459
Kirkland WA 98034-4305
Actually, we’re not kidding when we encourage people to also send snail mail submissions. Why? Because if we get enough submissions, we have big plans for doing some grassroots gallery shows at local establishments in various contributor’s places of residence. It sounds fancier than it is: We’re thinking small shows at coffee shops and other local venues, for example. So yeah. We need physical cards in order to coordinate gallery shows.
3a. For physical cards, U.S. postal regulations apply. To qualify for mailing at first-class mail card rates, a card must be rectangular, at least 3-1/2 inches high x 5 inches long x 0.007 inches thick and no more than 4-1/4 inches high x 6 inches long x 0.016 inches thick. You can check the USPS card specs page if you don’t believe us.
3b. For electronic cards, go larger rather than smaller. We’re happy to resize larger electronic files if necessary. Specs for the cards are 100 pixels per inch at 72 dpi. So, for a 6-inch wide card, that would mean you’d send in an image that’s 600 pixels wide at 72 dpi resolution. For a 4-inch wide card, you would send an image that’s 400 pixels wide at 72 dpi resolution. Please adhere to the proportions of actual postcards. The ratio between the width and length must be between 1.18 and 1.72.
3c. In case you think you can’t create a poetry postcard, think again! The online image editor Picnik is free and easy to use. You can upload one of your images and add a caption in a matter of minutes. Check it out: www.picnik.com.
4. Include the following: the name to which you want the piece attributed (first name, full name, handle, whatever you prefer), your URL (if you have one and want it included on the gallery page), a brief note about the piece (e.g., the process used to create it, the inspiration for it, that sort of thing), and the title. If the piece is collaboratively created, then send along the appropriate information for each author/artist.
If you’re using an image from someone else, please make sure you have permission to do so, and let us know if the image is online so we can link to it. (And remember that even share-alike images on Flickr and images from stock photography sites have specific attribution and linking requirements.)
5. Previously published work is acceptable, as are simultaneous submissions. If your poem has already been published elsewhere, that’s A-OK. Simply state where it appeared so that publication can be acknowledged. It is your responsibility to withdraw a simultaneous submission as soon as it is accepted elsewhere. You may submit the piece again as soon as any publisher requiring first publication rights has published it.
6. By the act of submitting work, you agree that, on acceptance, Postal Poetry acquires one-time and non-exclusive rights to share the piece online, as well to include the piece in any future Postal Poetry gallery shows (see item 3 for details on our plans for gallery shows). We may also use a thumbnail of your piece for promotional purposes (such as including a link with thumbnail from the project’s Facebook page).
This agreement is implicit unless otherwise negotiated between and documented by the creator(s) and publisher at time of acceptance. Though we do not acquire first publications rights, please be aware that literary journals will most likely consider a piece previously published if it appears here.
7. Material sent by snail mail will not be returned, even if you ask nice (not even if you ask really nice).
8. Submission does not guarantee inclusion. The project reserves the right to not post offensive or hateful material, not that anyone would submit crud like that.
9. If the number of submissions becomes unwieldy, we will limit how many pieces appear on the site, simply because there would not be enough time in the day to upload them all and whatnot. But no worries, since we have those big plans for gallery shows (again, see item 3 for details). So even if your work does not appear on the site, it could still be included in one or more shows.
10. We reserve the right to take our sweet(ish) time getting entries uploaded. If a month has passed since you sent in a piece and you haven’t gotten a response from us, feel free to pester us via email. Again, that’s postalpoetry (at) gmail (dot) com.
Now go out there and go postal!
Comments policy: Comments are welcome, but please refrain from unsolicited critiques. We reserve the right to delete comments for any reason, but we will not edit (except to correct obvious typos) unless the comment author requests it.