Postcard Poets

Dear poetry lovers and purveyors of rhyme,

We at Postcard Poets wish you a Happy New Year! As the new year begins we’ve decided that our January 2013 mailing will be our last. This may seem like a sudden decision, but we’ve been preparing and thinking about it for the past couple of months- let us explain. 

We started Postcard Poets in April of 2012. It was a collaboration between two grad students as an assignment for an entrepreneurship course taught by Gary Chou and Christina Caccioppo of Union Square Ventures. It’s been quite a journey and we have learned much more than we had imagined at the beginning. 

To find out what this means for you as a current subscriber, please see the FAQs below.

As students we have learnt things about running a company that one can only learn by doing, that are not taught in schools and curriculums- that in itself has made the journey worthwhile. Not unlike all startups, we went in with our assumptions, and predictably as we grew, gained a better sense of the opportunities and constraints related to running a publishing service. We initially ran into some issues with the USPS which we’ve been able to sort out for the most part, but another challenge- those involving copyright and poetry selection have proven to be the biggest challenge. In the end, we realized that the service was actually much more dependent on partnerships than we had initially anticipated. To work well, it would require resources we currently do not have. 

But it’s not all sadness and despair. It was and has been an experiment of sorts. In these past months, we’ve redesigned the website to incorporate your generous feedback and pull in new features to make it more flexible for you. Looking back, although the idea was compelling to us personally, we never expected the immense positive response it has received. There were people from all over the world writing to let us know how much they loved our idea and how it was something the world needed. Some used it to bring joy to their loved ones one poem at a time, some moulded our idea into a way for giving hope in times of tragedy and some just wanted to give us a try. In the beginning, we had agreed on our personal metrics of success- if we manage to bring joy and make a difference in even a few people’s lives, we would consider Postcard Poets a success- and a success it was. So, to all those that stood by us as we took our first steps into entrepreneurship and found our idea compelling enough to convey affection to their loved ones - thank you so much for being a part of this incredible ride.

And as is customary with every good ending- we close with a poem:

The End and the Beginning
Wislawa Szymborska

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder

to prop up a wall,

Someone has to glaze a window,

rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,

and takes years.

All the cameras have left

for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,

and new railway stations.

Sleeves will go ragged

from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,

still recalls the way it was.

Someone else listens

and nods with unsevered head.

But already there are those nearby

starting to mill about

who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes

sometimes someone still unearths

rusted-out arguments

and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew

what was going on here

must make way for

those who know little.

And less than little.

And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown

causes and effects,

someone must be stretched out

blade of grass in his mouth

gazing at the clouds.

Translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak

FAQ
I’m a current monthly subscriber. What does this mean for me?
You will receive your final set of poems in January 2013. This is covered by the charge made to your credit card in December 2012. Effective January 1st, 2013, all recurring charges will cease.

I purchased a gift subscription for x number of months. What does this mean for me and my gift recipient?
Your gift recipient will receive their final set of poems in January 2013. This is covered by the last charge to your credit card in December 2012. Effective January 1st, 2013, your card will be credited the remaining unused balance, if any.

Can you tell me more about the challenges you faced with shipping?
It was quite a learning curve with the USPS- we faced a number of issues with regard to paper stock, shipping times, and tracking costs. We initially shipped poems on translucent vellum that was beautiful but very thin. The postcards often reached their owners after a rather long wait, sometimes mangled and even lost. A couple months ago, we switched to a heavier kraft cardstock, and that seems to have done the trick. Still, it would be ideal if we could track each and every postcard to ensure a timely and safe delivery. Unfortunately, that option is not sustainable at our current subscription price.

Can you tell me more about the challenges you faced with content curation/selection?
With highly copyright protected poems and our shoestring budget we had not accounted for quality loss from poems in the public domain. We know most of you wrote to us with an appreciation for the poems we sent out to you, how they moved you, but let this be known, we meant it to be even better. We also looked into how we could keep the content fresh (and legal!) by taking a more active role in finding upcoming poets or poetry groups to partner up with but realized that that route involved much more time and resources- more than we had available.  

So, what happens to Postcard Poets now?

In the momentum that was brought about by some great companies and popular design blogs writing about us we never got a chance to evaluate our business practices and processes. This gives us the perfect chance to do that- although we are shut indefinitely, we are definitely open to suggestions and feedback and would consider possible tie-ups with poetry communities because we truly believe that if executed well it can bring a new and consistent source of recognition and earnings for old and upcoming poets alike. 

We’d love to hear from you! Drop us a line at hello@postcardpoets.com.

Much love and gratitude,
Sana & Nikki
Founders

Yes, we have successfully resolved hosting issues and are back with an easier way to gift poems to friends and family (your surprise will be safe with us)

We apologize for any convenience this may have caused, and thank you for your patience during the down time!

Now let’s get some poems flying through the post to your loved ones!

Poetry by Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age … Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don’t know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,

form the branches of night,
abruptly from others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled 
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
for myself a pure part of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

To all our lovely customers who have shown us a huge amount of love, the people who ordered, have sent gifts, and have received gift codes, thank you for your continued support!

We regret to inform you that our website is going through some server and hosting issues and therefore we are currently not handling payments or redemption. This may have happened due to the large volume of visitors to the site following this feature by the Webbys about us!

As a start up of two grad school students, we don’t always have the resources we might require, rest assured we are working quickly to upgrade to a better service provider to ensure that this never happens again, and we will let you know as soon as we are back up and running!

Thank you for your patience!

Here’s a poem while you wait:

Wait

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now? 
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion. 

~ Galway Kinnell

Dear readers and fellow poetry lovers,

We are looking for some great new poets to add to our poetry bank!

Write to us at hello@postcardpoets.com if you have some pieces of poetry you would like to send to our subscribers.

Send us your samples in a text file and we’ll let you know when we publish your work!

We look forward to fresh new poetry this summer!

Happy writing!

Summer in all its glory, unleashes a song, most often a poem.

This month’s poems should have arrived at your doorstep by now, 

if not, it will be there any day. (Tell us if it isn’t)

Pick it up and sing your songs of summer! Let us know what you think.

To Summer and to you, our dear poetry lovers, we owe these songs to you.

(P.S - A reminder that if you order your poem, you will receive them through the next month)

(P.P.S- Wait for our next update!)

In the spirit of openness, we’d like to share with you what we’ve been learning so far, and what changes we’ve made and plan to make in the coming days. In the weeks leading up to our launch, we got as much feedback as we could, but reality didn’t sink in until we actually made it, well… real. There are costs we failed to account for, and features that added unnecessary complications. In general, we would like to scale back and simplify. It’s a work in progress, but we’re excited to see where this goes, and to be working with you all. Let us know what you think in the comments.

International shipping
We had underestimated the costs for international shipping, and realized how unsustainable this was after the first few mailings (yes, they’ve started going out!). So going forward, until we are all part of one mass of land again, there will be an additional 75¢ per postcard for international orders. Domestic (US) shipping rates will remain unchanged – free.

Curators
Simplify, simplify, simplify is the lesson of the month, especially when dealing with a large number of orders. The Comic has taken a leave of absence and will soon be replaced with The Magician or The Juggler –- basically, a way for you to hand-off the agony of decision-making to fate (or us!). Let us surprise you with a good mix of poetry from the different curators.

Mailing List
For those of you who are not social media savvy, and just rely on good ol’ email, you can sign up to get on our mailing list. You can find it at the footer of our page.

Pricing
Conversations have been going around among all two of us about pricing — the balance between keeping Postcard Poets open, sustainable, and thriving, while maintaining reasonable prices for the community. We are also looking to simplify our plans by possibly setting a real subscription model with a fixed price per month with the ability to cancel any time.

Feedback and suggestions?
Excited? Pleased? Outraged? Let us know in the comments!

A lot has happened since we launched close to a week ago. In the span of such a small time, it seemed like we have lived an entire range of experiences, and emotions. We have been left overwhelmed by the generous love and the immense amount of positive responses, and more importantly the really constructive feedback we have received from our audience. Even as we are trying to iron out some of the glitches in user experiencewe are slowly being humbled by the patience and tolerance of our word-lovers.

To be honest, when Nikki and I thought of the idea, it was a very personal one, it was our love for poetry and our love for creating things that took this form and we really had no clue there was anyone else in the world besides us that would like this, but keeping our doubts aside we decided to build this platform to test our assumptions. We had decided, early on that even if there were ten people in the world who found this valuable in their lives we would be happy, and it would be worth the effort, and the response stunned us.

We are overjoyed whenever someone likes us enough to want to write about us or publish an article about us on their well perused blogs/dailies, but it is the genuine heartfelt mails we get everyday that really make putting all this effort in crafting a venture totally worth it. It is the fact that people would want to use our platform to convey love to their friends and family that has truly been the biggest reward for us.

As would be expected, because I have truly run out of words on this occasion to express our gratitude, I shall take a little help from Jack Gilbert:

The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart- Jack Gilbert

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,

and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,

God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words

get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according

to which nation. French has no word for home,

and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people

in northern India is dying out because their ancient

tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost

vocabularies that might express some of what

we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would

finally explain why the couples on their tombs

are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands

of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,

they seemed to be business records. But what if they

are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve

Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.

O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,

as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind’s labor.

Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts

of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred

pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what

my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this

desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script

is not language but a map. What we feel most has

no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.