Poetry Postcard Chapbooks
Chapbooks created in conjunction with the Cascadia Poetics Lab's Poetry Postcard Project
The poetry postcard project was started by Paul Nelson, founder of the Seattle-based Cascadia Poetics Lab. Each August the project engages artist poets from around the world in a postcard poetry exchange.
Many poets such as myself design and/or create postcards to accompany the poems they write during the month.
32 poems and illustrations; 67 pgs. 2021
In the 2021 project I use 32 traditional poetic forms from the ballad, to the Sapphic stanza, to the Ghazal and beyond to explore a relationship that has always been an answer in search of its question.
The visual theme for my 2021 poetry project was inspired by the quilt portraits of Bisa Butler after seeing the artist's exquisite exhibit Bisa Butler: Portraits at the Chicago Institute of Art.
The 32 multi-media illustrations were created between April and June 2021 using Strathmore watercolor paper, Grumbacher Art Watercolors, Faber Castell pens and Bic Intensity markers. Many of the designs are represented on the front and back covers.
27 poems and 18 illustrations; 38 pgs. 2019
This poetry project began with one walk on the 31st of December 2018 . . . and ended with another walk on the 25th of December 2019. (Strangely and serendipitously, with the same person, on two different continents.) It reflects a year of walking and exploring the ecstatic poetry of Rumi and Rilke.
The illustrations within the 2019 poetry postcard project depict the trees, prairie plants and animals that are the protagonists of many of the poems.
The 18 watercolor and ink illustrations were created throughout the year in conjunction with the poems using Strathmore watercolor paper, Grumbacher Art Watercolors and Faber Castell pens.
The World in Water
32 illustrations and poems; 28 pages; 2018
The illustrations within the 2018 poetry postcard project depict the natural environments, which were the subject of many of the haiku and imagist poems I wrote through the course of the project.
The 18 watercolor and ink illustrations were created throughout the months of July and August, in direct conjunction with the poems, using Strathmore watercolor paper, Grumbacher Art Watercolors and Faber Castell pens.