Poetry: Penny Secrets

So, after 366 days, my final Penny Secret went live at lunchtime.

My first reaction is: phew!

My second reaction is: thank god I won't have to try and think of another senryu for a while to come.

Truth be told, I can't remember quite why I decided to start writing these, a year ago. I think it was mainly because my dad bought me a diary for my birthday, and the spaces on the pages were the perfect size for something haiku-like.

The 'infraordinary' stuff came from Georges Perec. I must have been reading 'An Attempt At Exhausting A Place In Paris' at the time, and I wanted to attempt something similar, in terms of observing hard, and then distilling what I see.

I managed that at times, and quite clearly, at others I missed that brief by miles. I'm pretty sure that there are more than I would have really liked about the fact that I hadn't written one that day, or I was about to miss my deadline.

Truth be told, I did miss my daily allowance on a few occasions, but only a few, three or so I think, which for a year-long project I think is pretty good going. And I always made good the gap. Apart from on 12 October.

Plus I had a break through about six months in, when I worked out that I could edit the Tumblr post so that I didn't give away the whole poem in a tweet.

I haven't quite yet processed the fact that, with this project, and whatever else I managed this year, it's meant  I've written close to 400 poems over the 12 months. No wonder I'm a bit dry.

What happens next with them I also haven't decided. It'd be nice for them to exist in some form of paper or hard copy. But I haven't decided what form that might take. Suggestions most welcome.

And if even one of them has provided a moment of fleeting joy, then my work this year has been done.