when post cards ruled the earth

I admit it. I am often a conundrum.

I claim to be a modernist who favors almost all change. And then I start telling you about my love of poetry.

Poetry, of course, is not the problem. Lots of readers are fond of the art form that finds its core in condensed form.

It is the form in which I read it that outs me as a retroist -- if not an anachronism.

I like my poetry in a hard-bound book. It is not nostalgia that drives this preference. Poems simply work better on a printed page. The look of a poem is second only to the words it contains.

There is nothing new about that reality. But I thought of it afresh today while reading another section of Ted Kooser's Kindest Regards.

I turned the page to discover something I have not seen for a long time. A post card from the publisher. Asking me for my opinion on the book. The card is written in that unctuous publisher jargon that leads the reader to believe the publishing house really cares about what the reader thinks.

So, I will take out my fountain pen and write a few kind words. Even though the postage is prepaid, that will not work in Mexico. So, I will purchase a stamp and return the card to the good folks at Copper Canyon Press in Port Townsend, Washington. Thea fact that the publisher is small enough to be located in a town I know is incentive enough for me to take care in how I complete the card.

And, I will. Anyone kind enough to go to the trouble of including the card in my book deserves a response.

That whole process strikes me as being from a different era. When poetry was more widely-read and discussed and publishers cared about the works they provided to their readers. I am not certain it was a slower time. But we certainly seemed to take our time doing things precisely before moving on to the next.

What surprise me about the card was that it was there. I suspect I would not have even given a second thought if a similar card had appeared in my Spanish version of Jorge Castañeda's Mañana Forever? It didn't. But Mexico still has the pace of life that the postcard in my book symbolizes.

And that is just another reason, I enjoy living here. Whether I am an anachronism or not.