Abby E. Murray is War Postcard Project's "Keynote Poet"

Author of the poetry collections “Hail and Farewell” (Perugia Press, 2019) and the forthcoming “Recovery Commands” (Ex Ophidia Press, 2025), Abby E. Murray (they/them) is now also author of the “keynote” poem for the War Poetry Postcard Project (WPPP).

Murray’s poem “Hello, I am Not a Soldier,” wrestles with a daily dissonance felt as a spouse in an active-duty U.S. Army family: “[...] Wherever I go, I cling to my hope / like a weapon I have been trained to love.” The work was first published on-line in Rattle magazine Nov. 17, 2024. Now, it will be produced and shared with others on a postcard!

“Like many of our fellow citizen-poets, we’ve been struggling to find constructive, useful ways to deploy our words and talents in a world of increasing fascism, racism, genocide, and cruelty,” says Randy Brown, editor-publisher of the independent micro-press Middle West Press LLC. “For us, Abby’s poem provides a perfect example of what poetry can do in the world: It’s an artistic act of witness—a poem that inspires readers toward resilience, conversation, and further connection or expression.”

Postcards, Brown says, are a low-tech, accessible, and surprising way to connect and re-connect with people. “Unlike e-mail and social-media messages, a thought-filled postcard in someone’s mailbox can be a highlight of someone’s day.” Sending physical mail also supports the U.S. Postal Service, one of the basic governmental functions explicitly called for in the Constitution.

Launched to coincide with April 2025 as National Poetry Month (U.S), the War Poetry Postcard Project includes a pop-up literary contest that seeks new and reprint poems on the effects of armed conflict, state violence, and/or military service.

Among their other achievements, Murray is founding editor of the on-line literary publication Collateral Journal.

Collateral Journal and Middle West Press are co-sponsors of the War Poetry Postcard Project.

Later this summer, Murray will serve on a panel of judges to help select the first cohort of War Poetry Postcard Project prize-winners. Those selected by the panel will have their poems produced, printed, and distributed as visually engaging glossy 4x6 postcards, each suitable for mailing to friends, family, politicians, and others.

ALL contest entrants will receive physical copies of 3 prize-winning poems!

Entry fees will subsidize production, printing, and postage. 

Submit up to three new or previously published poems. Poems must be fewer than 26 lines in length, including line-spaces.

Contest deadline is May 3, 2025. 

Learn more about the project at: linktr.ee/warpoets

Submit poems via Submittable: middlewestpress.submittable.com/submit