Most see the postcard as nothing more than something you send on vacation, but Kevin Stein viewed it as an opportunity to push the boundaries of creativity.
The Illinois Poet Laureate introduced the Postcard Poems Project, a series of poems shared on postcards over the past six months between fellow poet Dean Young at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday.
Stein said his project isn’t merely poems written on postcards, but rather an attempt to freshen the poetry writing experience by altering the means of writing and sharing poems.
“The postcard format gave us license to risk silliness, erudition, playfulness and disclosure,” Stein said. “This allowed us to work against some physical boundary as we were working towards transgressing other aesthetic, intellectual and emotional borders in our ideas of what a poem is and might become.”
Senior English and creative writing major Lydia Strubhar said Stein has greatly influenced her style of writing because of his great combination of freedom and structure.
“The thing about great writers is that their work is not only a great experience, but it also inspires great conversation,” Strubhar said. “Dr. Stein’s poetry is some of my favorite to discuss with people.”
Aside from the poems’ creative structure, Stein said the purpose of his postcard poetry was to address certain compulsions, obsessions and things people harbor unseen in their daily lives.
“I try to balance the making of poems with the labor of talking about poetry to audiences of citizens and fellow poets,” he said. “There’s comfort in promoting to others the very thing one struggles to make new in one’s professional and personal lives.”
