For three full seasons (October-June, 2020-2023) I have conducted online workshops designed to allow poets who have participated in the Poetry Postcard Fest to go a little deeper into the process of learning how to revise less. The last workshop ended a deep dive into Brenda Hillman’s last book In a Few Minutes Before Later. The workshop was called “The End of a Few Minutes Before Later.”
As the groups neared the end of the workshops I offered some writing exercises that could be applied to the Poetry Postcard Fest. One of them was the Brenda-ized City Sonnet and comes out of Bernadette Mayer’s work.
https://paulenelson.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Brenda-ized-City-Sonnet.pdf
You might want to try this with your postcard process. Registration for this year’s fest is open at:
https://cascadiapoeticslab.org/category/poetry-postcard-fest/ and draft lists are coming this Sunday at the latest.
Fall workshops will be open for registration by September 1 and will have a huge Spiritual Ecology component. Details coming soon. What methods do you use for the postcard fest?
(Astronaut postcard by Tim Mateer.)
Method? I write whatever nonsense comes into the tiny hall of mirrors of my little mind and follow a corridor, knocking metaphors off their pedestals on the way & not sweeping up & try not to cut my feet on the detritus. I’m not sure it works. I’d recommend the exercises I don’t do.
The sentence a block thing is a great idea. Leave it to Bernadette. Block by block party poetry. Very good idea.