Ryan ChartrandI have a secret.
Actually, I have many secrets, but they aren’t the ones you’ll be reading about today. Instead I’m here to discuss PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives by Frank Warren. The display in the downtown Barnes and Noble caught my eye and I couldn’t help leafing through the book whose cover resembles a giant letter bound in postmarked brown paper. PostSecret consists of 288 pages of beautifully decorated postcards shouting or whispering their anonymous creators’ darkest secrets.
Several years ago, Frank Warren passed out 3,000 cards asking people to anonymously send in secrets they had never revealed before on homemade and artistically enhanced four-by-six-inch postcards. The only rules were that they must be brief, legible and creative. The experiment was so popular that Warren started a blog ( postsecret.blogspot.com) where he began to post some of the submissions. Thus the form of secrets as art was born, and his site grew (because who doesn’t like secrets?) until it was one of the top five visited blogs in the world. It even won an award for 2006 Weblog of the Year, and some of the postcards were used in the All-American Rejects music video “Dirty Little Secret.”
The confessions are as shocking as they are diverse. They range from the humorous (“I used to get high and watch Lawrence Welk”) to the heartbreaking (“The night he died he tried to call me. When I saw it was him I didn’t answer”) to the downright disturbing (“He’s been in prison for two years because of what I did. Nine more to go”). The form in which the secrets are told is often more entertaining than the secrets themselves. The art that accompanies these statements is aesthetically pleasing and proves that more than one talented artist is represented.
PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives, published in 2005, is Warren’s first compilation of postcards. My Secret: A PostSecret Book’s release last month marked the second of these collections. Unlike the first book, which includes submissions from all ages, My Secret focuses on entries from those in their teens and 20’s. At this time Warren also has a third book in the works.
This experiment is fascinating because as a reader it’s cathartic to read the confessions. Even if they don’t apply to you, you can almost feel the weight these people have been shouldering for (in many cases) most of their lives, as well as the release they feel from finally getting it on paper. The books give the reader the strong sense that secrets are a type of poison that will slowly destroy the bearer unless she or he lets go of some of that guilt by seeing the secret written down. While PostSecret seems like a book that can be quickly browsed through and returned to the shelf, it is not that easy to forget. It is guaranteed to encourage thoughtful contemplation of many of the issues it includes. While PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives is not a book you need to run out and buy, it’s definitely worth a look.
Want to send in a secret?
PostSecret
13345 Copper Ridge Rd.
Germantown, Maryland
USA 20874-3454