Dear Fellow Voter

Political Activism for Poets

Handwritten postcards on a cafe table. Photo by author.

Some poets write poems about Issues, about current events, about politics even, and I admire their fortitude and good-will. This is as close as I come to that sort of poem.

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POSTCARDS TO VOTERS


Dear fellow voter, I write,
because I do not know your name,
only your mailing address which I forgot
as soon as I wrote it on the front of this card,
only that and the promise that your convictions
are closer to mine than to the abyss,

Dear fellow voter,
here in my best printing in blue ballpoint pen
is the name of your candidate for Congress,
for State Assembly, for the School Board,
with then a well-honed sentence implying every reason
they deserve and need your vote;
or here is the name of a ballot measure
with VOTE YES or NO in block caps beside it,
or here is a number you can call to be assured
that you are on the rolls, your ballot will be in the mail.
Here is a final pithy sentence on elections
and democracy, and the weight of your vote.

Dear fellow voter,
here is one whole side of a pre-stamped postcard
in blue ballpoint pen, in my best printing; 
here is the smiley-face I drew next to two letters
that I reversed because my hand was tired,
then overwrote – see? not a bot!;
here are my urgent underlinings in red pencil
of essential blue-ballpoint words, and here
at the bottom is a red-pencil heart
next to my own first name, scribbled in cursive.

Dear fellow voter
whose name I do not know, I hope you hear
the beating of that red-pencil heart
as you read this note from a stranger
about things she hopes you have already decided;
I hope you feel my hopes adding weight to your vote
for this candidate or that cause,
for any step backward from the edge of the abyss.
I hope you know a love-note when you read one,
even from someone who does not know your name.

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[By grace alone, there’s an audio version of the poem recorded in my whole unbroken voice that you can listen to using the little widget above the photograph.]

When you’re an introvert with a twitchy nervous system you have a lot of superpowers, but the capacity to phone-bank or canvass isn’t one of them. I discovered campaign postcarding first in 2008 (guess why!), and was delighted to discover it again in 2022.¹ I like doing it for a lot of the same reasons I like knitting: it’s a portable project that can be done alone or in company, it’s comfortingly repetitive and crafty-clunky, and there’s a tangible result which most recipients are glad to get. (Seriously, there’s data on this at the PTV website: people who’ve reached the tune-out/delete stage with emails and texts are tickled to get a hand-written postcard just for the novelty of it, and they’ll remember what it says.)

I wrote this poem during the first half of July, so it doesn’t reflect the dance-beat that’s been added to the US political scene over the last month or so. It’s still true, though, and the way I know it’s true is that the first 157 times I read it aloud I started weeping during the last stanza. This is another reason I’d be a lousy phone-banker. I’m grateful there’s room in the world for twitchy introvert poets, and ways for us to make a difference … one poem, one postcard at a time.

1. There are a lot of organizations that will welcome your help with postcarding. I write for www.PostcardsToVoters.org, which focuses on down-ballot campaigns and GOTV reminders in swing states.