{"id":28869,"date":"2020-07-09T05:30:37","date_gmt":"2020-07-09T10:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=28869"},"modified":"2020-07-08T22:17:33","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T03:17:33","slug":"austin-peay-state-university-professor-andrea-spofford-connects-with-pandemic-distanced-friends-by-sending-original-poems-on-antique-postcards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2020\/07\/09\/austin-peay-state-university-professor-andrea-spofford-connects-with-pandemic-distanced-friends-by-sending-original-poems-on-antique-postcards\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Peay State University professor Andrea Spofford connects with pandemic-distanced friends by sending original poems on antique postcards"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – Andrea Spofford had 50 antique postcards, a typewriter and a plan. <\/p>\n

A poet, essayist and Austin Peay State University (APSU) associate professor of English, Dr. Spofford created her plan in mid-March, around the time most states shut down in response to the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic. <\/p>\n

\"Spofford<\/a>

Spofford typed original poems on 50 antique postcards and mailed them to friends. (APSU)<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I thought about what it means to be socially distant, I also thought about how we make connections,\u201d she wrote in Journal Nine<\/a> recently.<\/p>\n

Spofford announced the project on Facebook: \u201cI have 50 antique postcards, a typewriter, and a plan. If you would like an original poem written by me and mailed by the USPS, message me a mailing address.\u201d <\/p>\n

Friends and families quickly claimed all the postcards, which she bought from an antique store she frequented during graduate school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to reach out, to make art and to continue forging those connections that were so suddenly disrupted,\u201d Spofford wrote for Journal Nine.<\/p>\n

She typed her poems on a collection of Curt Teich & Co. postcards from 1900-1940 that featured landscapes and national parks. She mailed them all over the country, from Clarksville to Arizona, Louisiana and California.<\/p>\n

Journal Nine \u2013 the quarterly online poetry journal noted above \u2013 published several of the postcards and poems.<\/p>\n

You can read about Spofford\u2019s creative process and how she typed the poems without revision \u2013 despite her perfectionist needs \u2013 at https:\/\/www.journalnine.com\/\/andrea-spofford<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To learn more about APSU\u2019s Department of Languages and Literature, go to www.apsu.edu\/langlit\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – Andrea Spofford had 50 antique postcards, a typewriter and a plan.  A poet, essayist and Austin Peay State University (APSU) associate professor of English, Dr. Spofford created her plan in mid-March, around the time most states shut down in response to the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[21291,23,2021,9703,262,7995,512,825,34581,34634,8448,34642],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-7vD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28869"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28870,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28869\/revisions\/28870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}