The Lost Art of Postcard Writing by Charles Simic | The New York Review of Books

From NYRblog, "The Lost Art of Postcard Writing"

Here it is already August and I have received only one postcard this summer. It was sent to me by a European friend who was traveling in Mongolia (as far as I could deduce from the postage stamp) and who simply sent me his greetings and signed his name. The picture in color on the other side was of a desert broken up by some parched hills without any hint of vegetation or sign of life, the name of the place in characters I could not read. Even receiving such an enigmatic card pleased me immensely. This piece of snail mail, I thought, left at the reception desk of a hotel, dropped in a mailbox, or taken to the local post office, made its unknown and most likely arduous journey by truck, train, camel, donkey—or whatever it was— and finally by plane to where I live.

via www.nybooks.com

Some of you dear readers may be aware of my extensive postcard collection (hundreds). it began when I was in middle school and grows every few weeks. As a result, i am enthusiastic to share this blog post from the New York Book Review (thanks esther!) concerning the motivations and tribulations of postcard writers. The author posits a dichotomy of post-card sender types: those who pick the iconic image from their visit and send sentimental notes about traveling, and those who find the funky if not absurd image and write a quirky, ideally humorous, note to the intended recipient.

I was struck by one interesting historical observation made by the author. He questions the existence of a "post-card literature" (very hist and lit of him) and refers to the very brief pointed messages that accompanied post-cards in the early 20th century. I have picked up a couple of vintage cards over the years and indeed they often contain the most serious of news. Marriages, deaths, funerals, and births were all announced by carte-postale. And I wonder, was it the relative cheapness or telegram-like aspect of post-cards that caused people to trust them (no envelope to speak of) with their most intimate and private of messages?

I occasionally grapple with the lack of anonymity of the post-card. Any one at the post office can read my note! Of course, I always realize that no one at the post office cares what I wrote. Furthermore, with the impending slashing of USPS jobs fewer actual people will be reading them.
We should all send a few more of these colorful personal notes, it might seriously boost the Post's numbers while helping to perpetuate a dying print "literature."

 one of my more recent aquisitions. Text on back: "Hi Sarah! Greetings from hot-hot-hot (literally Phnom Penh." author will remain anonymous...

Comments

[Jeannashjohnson]

Hmmmm. Cambodia. Think I know who "anonymous'' is. Also, I like that you not only are on the receiving in of postcards. I have a huge collection form your world travels.

[Jeannashjohnson]

Response from my facebook friend, Scott, (classical music critic for the DMN) who spotted your postcard blog post on my wall:

Scott Cantrell -- Of course, Facebook has been a big factor in its demise.

[Jeannashjohnson]

To correct word selection my earlier post:
Hmmmm. Cambodia. Think I know who "anonymous'' is. Also, I like that you not only are on the receiving END of postcards. I have a huge collection FROM your world travels.

(No writing for me before second cup of coffee!)

[James Marks]

I find that I tend to buy postcards most often as bookmarks. If I really enjoy a trip to a museum I'm not likely to see again for quite a while, I pick up a few postcards of my favorite pieces to remember them by. Plus, I have lots of books. I'd like to see more of this Postcard Lit, though, and perhaps to contribute to it. I know it's antiquated, but I quite like sending and receiving letters - it's just that people don't tend to keep up correspondences, and then I fail to keep up my end of a largely one-sided conversation. But writing and receiving letters has a strange familiarity to it, even for those of us, like myself, who had email by the time we were old enough to think about writing actual letters.

Considering telegram involved literally telling your intimate message to a stranger, perhaps postcard didn't seem like so much of an intrusion into privacy, and anyway, even if it's grave or momentous news, it may've been seen as simply telling relevant news to someone. I.e., "so-and-so has died", or "so-and-so was married to so-and-so", are neither strictly private things to share, though the private aspects would probably call for something more intimate, like a sealed letter, which may not have always been worth writing. (Would the postage have been less for a postcard?) Having written very few postcards, though - and usually only because the location or the image were novel enough or reminded me of a certain person enough to warrant coming up with a note and sending it - I wonder whether it, too, can have that strange familiarity that letter-writing does. Someone who has a collection or likes collecting old postcards should start a twitter account. How often would they've gone over 140 (or 280, two tweets) characters?