The LR Postcard Project: #009

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Postcard #009
Poet: Mariailona A. Panaligan

Papang Wore Fedora Hats

They were similar to the ones I
saw on the American TV
channels.
The scratch pixels waving
incandescently like a cheap
candle.
I’d watch the white men move around
the 4:3 in their pastel
colored suits, beltlines hiked up so
high that each cuffed polyester
pant leg flooded.
It seemed hot where they were,
a different hot from our home
in Muntinlupa.
The sun was always beaming
in its flecked way as the
tongue of each ray licked
the skin of the men on
the TV making them look
oily and sticky.
But on the hot days we knew,
the sun had a different familiar
face. I basked in it, dangling
my purple chinelas amply as I
sat on your lap eating ripened
mangos and bayabas. Or on a
really good day, you’d take me
to the corner vendor and buy
me Chippy with some Coke in a
bag that had a rubber band
wrapped loosely around a clear
straw sticking out from
the top, keeping it in place
for drinking. And you would hoist
me on your shoulders and hold the
Coke in a bag so I didn’t spill a single
sugary drop—
andIwould listen to the
crunching of each chip between
my ears one by one by one

as Papang whistled, I watched
the blue brim of his fedora
like the horizon.

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Thank you to all who participated in the 2011 LR Postcard Project.

The LR Postcard Project 2011: #029

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Postcard #029
Received: April 2011
Poet: Kelly Fordon

. . .

it wasn’t lovely
but it was fine
wooden eyes in a
wooden head
mouth sewn shut
and hair like
twine—
oh I remember when
we used to sing—
in the morning
in the spring—
water flowing from a
moon washed gourd.

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Thank you to all who participated in the 2011 LR Postcard Project.

LR News: Don’t forget to send in your postcards!

Participate in the LR Postcard Project!

Just a quick reminder: today is the postmark deadline for sending in your responses to our Postcard Project.  If you have a free minute or two today, please consider writing a few lines on your card, slapping on a stamp, and sticking it in the post box.  We’ve really enjoyed the few postcards that have been sent in so far, and look forward to publishing more of them on the blog!

LR News: April 2011 Happenings (National Poetry Month Edition!)

It’s National Poetry Month! T.S. Eliot may have famously proclaimed April to be “the cruelest month,” but here at LR, plenty of exciting things are happening (yes, even despite the giant, fat snowflakes that I woke up to this morning here on the East Coast):

National Poetry Month Contest Prompts (sponsored by Kaya Press)

In celebration of the urge to translate idea and image into line and stanza, we will be posting a prompt submitted by one winner of our National Poetry Month Prompt Contest on each successive Friday of a full week in April, beginning with the 3rd runner-up on the 8th, and leading up to the Grand Prize winner on the 29th.  Our big winner will receive a copy of Lisa Chen’s Mouth, thanks to the kind generosity of Kaya Press.  Many thanks to all those who submitted a prompt!  Please check back every Friday to see whether your submission has been chosen!

Reading Period for Issue 3

Looking for something to do with your responses to the contest-winners’ prompts?  You’re in luck, because we will be reopening our reading period to submissions for Issue 3, starting next week.  Time to dust off the poetry hat and get your revising on!

Continued Postcard Project Posts (Postmark Deadline: April 15th)

If you took home a postcard from AWP or received one in the mail, now is the time to send it in! Please don’t forget, our postmark deadline is April 15th.  We will continue to post cards as we receive them.  (A reminder that we also plan to choose a couple of postcards to feature in Issue 3, and participating in the Postcard Project does not preclude your submitting through our regular reading period, so if you’re hoping for an extra chance of your work being noticed this time around, sending in your postcard poem in addition to submitting through our electronic system is one way to go!)

Interviews with Oliver de la Paz and Sarah Gambito

We are very excited to have the honor of being able to publish interviews with two Asian American literary luminaries, Oliver de la Paz and Sarah Gambito, on our blog later this April. Be on the lookout for our staff writers’ interviews with these two distinguished poets.

. . . and More.

As always, we’ve got our regular columns (Sulu DC, Becoming Realer), but we’ve also got a few surprises up our sleeves, so keep your eyes peeled!

Happy Poetry Month,

Iris & Mia.