Hey all! I’m going to keep this pretty brief, because I think in many ways my day 30 poem serves as a wrap-up post in and of itself, and also because I’m feeling a little bit stretched thin.
- First and foremost, thanks so much to everyone who engaged with the poems this year. I feel bad that I wasn’t able to be as generous towards others’ work—I just didn’t have the capacity this month in the end. I did feel engagement fall off somewhat as the month went on; I’m not sure if that speaks to the quality of the poems (though I do personally think that days 1 & 2 are two of the strongest and there was a definite dip in the middle) or if it’s just the nature of the beast. I was occasionally surprised at which ones attracted more likes and which ones flew under the radar, but on the whole it did track with how I felt about the poems and the effort I’d been able to put in that day. I should add that we are in no way talking viral numbers here, but it felt really nice and intimate to see the same names popping up with support and appreciation this month.
- I’ve been pretty transparent about the fact that I’ve been struggling a bit this month, both in my introductory bits and in the poems themselves. When going back over them for the cento I was struck by how dark a handful of them were, to the point where I was like, fucking yikes! I hope I’ve conveyed in some of the subsequent posts and poems that I’m basically fine, despite hitting a little bit of a rough patch and feeling quite burnt out etc.
- Switching to closed forms really made a difference for me. I’m not opposed to open forms in theory, but they CAN lead to laziness, and in my case they often do. It was also fun to discover and play with some new forms.
- I’m a little bit disappointed I didn’t manage a sestina in the end, but I’m also glad I listened to my gut and went in a different direction. I don’t think forcing it would have been the right move.
- I made a word cloud, much like last year, which was also originally going to determine which words I used in the sestina. I… don’t know if it’s especially revelatory, to be honest? That might well be one of the reasons why the sestina didn’t take—because the words just weren’t that inspiring.
- Hopefully I’ll be back to do it all again next year, and double hopefully I’ll be in a better headspace then. While the quality of my output this year may have been highly variable, I’m proud of myself for sticking with it and posting every day, even when it was hard. Happy May!
Panicky in the UK 