Wednesday, January 10, 2018 // The Statement
6B

Let’s Talk About It: 
 
 
 
 
Writing through my obsessions

I 

was recently tapping away 
at my keyboard keys writing 
an article I was not feeling 
passionate about. This was 

deeper than a few bad weeks of writing. 
I recently felt the same way about 
my poetry, but learned to build my 
confidence in writing poems through a 
workshop class last fall semester.

Every week I would write — even 

on days I did not feel I could keep 
writing — and when I did, I discovered 
something new about the way I think. 

On the first day of my poetry workshop, 
I walked in and told my professor I 
was worried about becoming known 
as the “Muslim poet” in class because 
I write frequently about religion. 
What she replied with stuck with me. 
She explained that it is your obsession 
that chooses you, and you must write 
through your obsessions even if it 
feels like you are writing the same 
poem twice. From then on, I saw the 
poems we read in a much different 
light, 
watching 
my 
peers 
write 

through their obsessions while I tried 
to write through mine.

I find myself often falling into the 

trap of focusing on being productive 
to perfection, forgetting that some of 
the greatest thinkers in history began 
by working on improving themselves 
before sharing their ideas with the 
world. And so, as I wrote through 
my poems, they revealed to me why 
I had started writing and why I had 
stopped. I started writing poetry as 
a means of telling stories to counter 
common stereotypical narratives that 
frustrated me. I wrote as soon as I saw 
a news headline I did not agree with 

or when I wanted to put the ideas 
behind my own choices into words 
that would resonate with other people. 
This connection was invigorating for 
me and gave me a confidence I never 
had before.

I stopped writing poetry when I 

started feeling like I was repeating 
myself, but I learned to stop fearing 
how my words would be perceived 
before they even reached the page. I 
started to treat writing as a process of 
discovery instead of right or wrong.

And yet, so often when people 

do an act that is a process instead 
of 
something 
polished, 
we 
stop 

ourselves from doing the very things 
that keep us going. We put pressure 
on ourselves to be perfect, to create 
an image to uphold over social media 
or for our friends, or even people 
we have never met. We do not allow 
ourselves to fail and focus on the end 
result of everything that we do. We 
focus on becoming a “brand” instead 
of just a person trying to figure out 

what they want to do in this life that’s 
ever-changing.

I realized the problems I was 

having in my writing were the same 
ones I was having elsewhere in 
my life. Instead of focusing on the 
present, on what I wanted to write 
in this moment, I started to focus on 
myself as a writer 10 or 50 steps from 
now. To be mindful and present is an 
accomplishment in and of itself, and 
one that is too often overlooked. 

BY RABAB JAFRI, COLUMNIST

ILLUSTRATION BY RABAB JAFRI

And so, as I wrote through my 
poems, they revealed to me why 
I had started writing and why I 
had stopped.