One of the many things that students will often consider a highlight of their college experience is commonly the clubs they join during their time. Clubs are a fun way to get to know more people, as well as find those with common interests to gain and share information with. Poetry Club, a place of inspiration and wonder, has no shortage of these traits.
The Poetry Club was never created to be something super professional, rather, the idea to create the club came from the simple concept of people who wanted to write poetry coming together and creating this club. Kaiah Gloria, the leader of the club, says, “We were just some people that wanted to write poetry, so we created a community where that could happen.” The club especially grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, since ways to have community were limited during the time, and poetry club helped to bring the community that people wanted and needed.
The main point of the club is nothing formal, professional or “hyper-everything-needs-to-be-perfect;” rather, it is quite the opposite. The main point of the Poetry Club is to give people a place where they feel comfortable and safe to write and share their poetry with others without fear of judgment. Gloria says, “The goal of the club is to write poetry, but to also give a home in the sense of giving people community and a very hospitable place to be themselves and work out who they want to be among safe people.” With acceptance and hospitality at its core, the Poetry Club is certainly an accepting and cozy place to be.
The club was first created before the COVID-19 pandemic, being just a small group of people at first, but the club grew immensely during the season of COVID-19. It offered a community that many people craved with how limited accessibility there was during the time. Once they were able to, the poetry club became a group that would get tea and go through poetry together. Gloria, when asked about the club’s growth over time, says, “For the last four years, there’s been a pretty strong group of people, but this is the first year that we’ve had such a large influx of new members, which has been very exciting.” No matter how small a community may start, there’s always room to grow, and the poetry club is a fine example of finding that rhythm to grow in members.
What are their plans going forward? The poetry club wants to do more events in the future in order to invite people together as well as raise awareness to the Poetry Club. Club leaders want to let any aspiring artists in literature come and share some of their own words. The Poetry Club is here to offer a safe environment for such. Gloria says, “We want to offer a safe space to not be afraid to fail, ‘it works for you, not you work for it.’” The poetry club meets every Friday from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Reynolds second floor lounge, taking an hour to write on given prompts or ideas of their own. Then, they take 30 minutes to share afterward. For more information, you can contact the leader of the Poetry club, Kaiah Gloria.
There’s never a time at Westmont that friendly students cannot be found, and the Poetry Club is yet another example of that. With a wonderful community and no standard of expectation, time spent with this club will always be time well spent. To everyone with some open time on your Friday evenings, be sure to head to Reynolds and hang out with this amazing club! Whether it be an interest in literature or just wanting to be included in a welcoming community, all can be achieved with the Poetry Club, a place glowing of inspiration and wonder!
