How It Works

  1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts below

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

A Center

You must hold your quiet center,
where you do what only you can do.
If others call you a maniac or a fool,
just let them wag their tongues.
If some praise your perseverance,
don't feel too happy about it—
only solitude is a lasting friend.
You must hold your distant center.
Don't move even if earth and heaven quake.
If others think you are insignificant,
that's because you haven't held on long enough.
As long as you stay put year after year,
eventually you will find a world
beginning to revolve around you.

Ha Jin
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/152066/a-center

If you wish to attend the read around (t’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). Note: If you registered already, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

Writing From The Inside Out


The next Read-Around is 7/2/26 at
5:00 PM PDT — 8:00 PM EDT

My Thoughts

Scientists say everything in the universe spins, And everything that spins has a center. As does everything else that is bigger than itself. As are we, who cannot comprehend our own outer edges; we who so easily lose our wits to the world; we who get so lost inside ourselves spinning out our lives day by day. On our worst days, we spin our coffin. On our best, we spin a yarn that lights the world. We forget that we are the spinners. Whatever web we weave will be whipped away in the whirlwind unless it is spun out from the center of our being, from the center around which everything in us and around us spins. That is why I love Ha Jin’s poem, A Center. It is a poignant reminder to hold our center: that still, quiet place within us which goes with us wherver we go, stays true no matter what we do, and from which we may spin out a life true to ourselves and truly our own.

Prompt Ideas

  1. Journal or write a poem about your own “quiet center.”

  2. Journal or write describing a space or place or time or activity where you do what only you can do.

  3. Consider a time or experience where others judged you or “wagged their tongues” at you. Write about that experience and how it effected you, especially if you did not let it stop you or bother you.

  4. Consider a time or experience where others praise you. Write about that experience and how it effected you.

  5. Journal or write apogee about solitude. In what way is solitude a lasting friend?

  6. In my own life, I have had fleeting moments of being in my own quiet center. But holding to that center, and living from it, seems to require a dedicated practice. How do you stay put in your center? Journal or write a poem about that idea, where you might be in that process, or what you think dn feel about it

  7. Ha Jin ends his poem with the idea of having the world revolve around you, which usually has the pejorative connotation of a selfish narcissistic person. How might it be interpreted in the context of the poem? Journal or write a poem about this phrase, wherever it might lead you.

  8. As usual, write about whatever else inspires you form the poem or from life.