Postcard Poems: A Collection of Poetry for Sharing

by Paul B. Janeczko (Editor)

A collection of 104 brief poems by such poets as William Carlos Williams, Richard Brautigan, Langston Hughes, Ezra Pound, Charles Simic, Cid Corman, and Carl Sandburg.

Genres: Poetry

105 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Paul B. Janeczko is a poet and teacher and has edited more than twenty award-winning poetry anthologies for young people, including STONE BENCH IN AN EMPTY PARK, LOOKING FOR YOUR NAME, SEEING THE BLUE BETWEEN, and A POKE IN THE I, which was an American Library Association Notable Book.

Reviews

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first time this book let me caress it, and smell its used sinewy pages, I cannot remember how it came into my being, but it left in the happy hands of a departing lover. There is a full mystery in giving someone a gift of poetry. This current copy came out of the public library book sale. This book has many lives in it and should be carried to every tavern and then all the churches with lines of translators as its hubris crosses the oceans to foreign lands. If the illiterate are present, then the stingiest heart in the room must read one poem from this collection. This crass fucker must have inflection, zeal...she must read loud and then soft...so soft in fact that other people in the room must strain to hear the heartbeats of the words that pour from her chapped mouth. Give away free beer! Call in the library gestapo...all they do is sit in their hallowed halls clipping their nails with their Swiss Army knives and then filing them smooth. Mandate them to paste poems on hospital and grocery store bulletin boards and on the school hall lockers. Lobby congress to have Amazon burnish them into the plastic of new mouse pads and cell phone covers and condom wrappers! Let's plead the case to Richard Branson to have Virgin Galactic carry them in to space and let his wealthy clients chastise the scientists in the International Space Station with some soulful verse to harmonica accompaniment. Be careful for death lurks in this book, grease monkey junkies, derelicts, certainly some mad brilliance...maybe mundane to some but still taking flight into the maw of a thunderstorm for many.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in the beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very much enjoyed this anthology of small poems, which I discover on a dusty college library shelf. Was surprised to learn later that it was intended for a child readership. Fortunate children! Surprisingly sophisticated offerings here from William Carlos Williams, W. S. Merwin, Howard Nemerov, A. R. Ammons, Eve Merriman, William Stafford, Rainier Marie Rilke, and many other lights.

[Ariel Simmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interest Level:12-14
Reading Level:8th-10th

Postcard Poems is a collection of romantic, funny, creative, imaginative, seasonal, and almost any other poem you could think of. This book is great for introducing different forms of poetry to children and showing them a old and classic way of writing.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely anthology, lots to photocopy (or hand-copy) and save for classroom use. Personal use, too!