on poetry circles & unlocking new levels of joy
My aspiration obsession to become a better writer supersedes everything else, and, to me, “writing” was always synonymous to “prose.” I am a passionate essayist, constantly working on polishing my sentence structure, storytelling techniques, and ability to convey the mundane into valuable insight for a passing-by reader.
I think it’s easy to tell I've never written poetry in my life, so I don’t know why I was strangely compelled by the idea of joining a weekly poetry circle.
I loved reading and annotating poetry, though, especially back in high school when we were assigned Percy Shelley’s “Ozymandias,” John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” or William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered as Lonely as a Cloud.” I've written about my love for haikus before, too. My favorite poem remains Robert Frost’s “Road not Taken.”
Though I avoided writing poetry, I've been notably interested in 1. finding a community of like-minded local writers 2. challenging myself creatively. This week's theme was on the scarcity of being enough: how is self-worth defined? When do you feel enough? We went over Suzanne Buffam's "Enough,", which I think potently captures the litany of generational rage, domestic despondency, and feelings of inadequacy:
What does it mean to love the life we’ve been given? To act well the part that’s been cast for us?
It was provocative how many participants equated mistake with feelings of worthlessness. We challenged that mindset by reinforcing that trying itself means you're enough. My biggest takeaway was the power of grounding yourself in the present, of anchoring yourself at a personal “reference point.” How have I grown today compared to yesterday? Did I invest in improving myself, my skills, my mind?
At the end, we generated 10-minutes poems based on our discussions and personal revelations. Initially, letting go of my perfectionism was a struggle. Among these great poets, how don't I become obsessed with crafting an equally great poem? But that's precisely why I joined this circle. I should create bad things. How else do I expect to overcome my compulsion of being perfect?
Above are miscellaneous notes and my very incoherent, disjointed phrases I called my poem. Reading it aloud felt liberating and made me revisit the idea of “unlocking new levels of joy": that new experiences shouldn't feel pressuring but to expand your horizons in delightful ways. There’s a kind of joy you can’t reach alone or by staying in the routines you know by heart.