Though I appreciate the honor of being published, poetry is my playground. I use it to sharpen my understanding of language, connect with other writers, and process my personal life. Every summer I join the Postcard Poetry Festival run by Cascadia Poetics Lab. Every day for a month you are encouraged to write a poem short enough to fit on a postcard. Then you mail that postcard to another participant—a stranger on a list that could be anywhere in the world. Many of the poems that are listed here were born from that exercise.