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

As opposites, give and take should have equal real estate on the spectrum and the Bell Curve of the population should show those with a relative mix generally in the middle versus the outliers on the edges, including those perceived as mostly givers or takers. Perhaps there is some law of the universe that requires a balance over the population as a whole or over the individual in a lifetime. If so, that may be good news, given the celebration of greed in our world and the drive to join the circus of wealth. I am not immune to the seduction of status and the accumulation of things, but I lacked the ambition to build a golden castle on the cliff edge. Up until recently, I thought of myself as somewhat stingy — protective of my time, careful with my things, living out the Ben Franklin Credo, never a lender nor borrower or be.

But I've been turning the tables recently and have taken a deep interest in generosity. So I searched Google for poems about generosity. Appearing top of the list was Alberto Rios’, When Giving Is All We Have. Maybe the statistics have it wrong, parsing people into one camp or another. Maybe the reality is far more nuanced and subtle. After all, there is a give and take in every breath, in every contact between us and the world, in every interaction. In a strange way, giving may be all we have control over in the equation. We can turn it into a transaction, keep a book of who owes what to whom, mete out reward and punishment accordingly. Or we can abide in a deeper faith, open the faucet for life to flow through us, be the the gracious recipient of what we are given by giving all we have.

Prompt Ideas

  1. Journal or write a poem about generoisty, whatever that may mean to you.

  2. Journal or write a poem listing reasons for giving. You can use Rios’s repeating phrase: I (or we) give because…

  3. Journal or write a poem about a particular time you were inspired to give. What inspired you? What did you do? How did it turn out?

  4. Use Rios’ third stanza as your prompt: How has giving made you better? How has giving wounded you? Write about the benefit and cost of giving.

  5. Describe the face of giving, or, as Rios proclaims, the many faces of giving

  6. Journal or write a poem about a personalized giving or, as Rios describes it ,hand to hand, mine to yours and yours to mine.

  7. Journal or write a poem about giving what you have or do not have to give. What might it mean to give what you do not have? What do you have to give? Write a list poem of what you have to give. What do you give easily and what are you reluctant to give? How can something greater be made from the difference between what one person giving what they have to give and what another giving what they do not have to give? ?

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