I did it! Thirty poems in thirty days.

Quality-wise, it's just what I expected: some good first drafts, some real turkeys, and a lot of writing that never left the region of "exercise." Nonetheless, it was a necessary project, I think, as an object lesson in writing as a career. If I'm not working every day, then I have a very expensive hobby. I did this while finsihing my thesis, volunteering for a large event, recovering from a cold, and otherwise living my life. Time must be taken.

My heart is also large with support of all the people from my various circles who have been following my progress. Always a pleasant surprise to see an old name drop in with my regular readers. And I feel like I'm closer to my colleagues who became fellow travellers on this endeavour. (National Poetry Month veterans... but where's our parade?) Love and thanks to everyone on board, whether you were a writer, a commenter, or just a lurker.

And now, we return you to our regular-scheduled docmanhattan. I'm sure there's something in the papers to annoy me.

I'm pleased to report that my 30/30 project (30 poems in 30 days for National Poetry Month) is still alive, well, and on-schedule at The Bittering Agent. And (even better, from my perspective) it seems like people are actually reading it. If you've been reading, thanks!

I realize I'm negelecting my lj to some extent to do do so, but it's worth it to be writing every day, and after April I can return to my usual campaign of whinging and venting.

So, I've decided to take the middle path on my attempt to write 30 poems in 30 days: LJ is a great place (for people), but not what I need for this (for hosting).

Instead, you can follow my progress over on a blog created for just that purpose:
The Bittering Agent: my 30/30 blog.

It takes OpenID comments, so I know my LJ friends will be able to comment if they please. You can also syndicate it to a feed-reader of your choice. Y'know, if you want.

For the stuff I've posted here already, it'll be friend-locked and reposted over yonder. Hope to see you there.

Happy National Poetry Month, everyone!

In celebration of the month, I'll be attempting to write 30 poems, one for each day of April. This not an April Fool's prank--just quixotic and pretentious.

As of now, the 30/30 challenge is kind of grapevine/grassroots, and as such lacks a central body or a catchy name, like NaNoWriMo has. I believe a few places are attempting to steward it into something more official, but with no word-count requirements, "official" certification isn't entirely necessary. (Still, like its prose cousin, a central org could provide support, backup storage, prompts, and community, so more power to 'em.)

For me, the honor system works just fine, but I can't decide if I should post my daily poem here in the pages of this journal. It'll keep me honest, and technically I have sound copyright, but I still worry about security. I realize those worries are like locking the doors of my 99 Saturn wagon--I'm flattering myself to think the few people who pass by would even want to steal it. (Maybe they're eager to know the pain of getting a rejection letter from the New Yorker without putting forth the effort of writing?)

Moreover, I'm not all that sure anyone in my regular readership actually wants to see a poem a day from me. I'd tag it and put it behind an lj-cut, but still, I can see this project entering eye-rolling territory by week two or so.

So what say you, Friends? Should I post my poem-du-jour here? Just report in on the project occasionally? Or would you rather just take my word for it and return to our usual program of my life and whatever I'm hating today?