Radical Post Card Art

For a few years now, Eric Unger has been pioneering the field of Post Card Art. He makes these wonderful, slogany, collage type post cards out of construction paper, anti-substance abuse ads, post office stickers, and cardboard - paints them up and collages in whatever material he has at hand. When I get these in the mail, they make my day. In terms of what they do poetically, he uses this small space to collide slogans, ad campaigns, reviews of the latest Godard film from the 1970's Time magazine, and his own one liners. It's at the same time an elastic and constrictive form that has not been explored to its fullest extent - I think radical postcard art can take us a long way. What I find compelling is the way it literalizes O'Hara's "personism" - getting right there between you and the receiver, without the mediation of a typical setting for poetry (the journal or book). Poetry gets out into the world this way, passed around - the poem bleeding out into the world. Just wanted to tip my had to Eric for his hard work over the years and for making some inroads.

MS