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

Spotlight On The Word

Words are contaminated
by every one of us.
They drink, distinct in each of us, our blood.
They grow pregnant from our lived lives,
our specific destinies.
Now raised to abstractions,
earlier they interned in the pith
of our own flesh.
That’s why divergence draws
and carves chasm after chasm
between mouths and ears.
What is expressed and prevails
as a seemingly shared code in common
does not glisten with the aura of its presence
and knows nothing of our inner life.

—Astrid Cabral
Translated from the Portuguese by Alexis Levitin

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:

The next Read-Around is 8/13/26 at
5:00 PM PDT — 8:00 PM EDT

My Thoughts

The range of sounds a human mouth can make is astonishing. And those sounds can be arranged into meaningful utterances in approximately 7,160 living languages in the world today, about half of which have a written form. Language allows us to share our inner ideas, thoughts, feelings, our intentions and desires, our concerns and understandings, and our stories with others. The caveat is that language is a representational system And what any word represents can vary widely between people. After years or exploring with the impact of language on experience, I am amazed that we communicate effectively at all. here are so many ways communication can go wrong. This is what Astrid Cabral highlights in hoer poem, Spotlight On The Word. We each contaminate words, impregnate them with our own, lived experience. Cabral states that this leads to “chasm after chasm between mouth and ears.” Yet words are the essential tool for writers. What is your relationship to words? How do you ensure that your words resonate with your own inner life?

Prompt Ideas

1. Journal or write a poem titled Words and write whatever comes to mind for you.

2. Cabral says, “Words are contaminated by every one of us.” Journal or writer poem about this idea? How do you contaminate words? How does this contamination impact communication? How have others contaminated your words?

3. Think of a particular word and describe how it has been informed (Cabral says impregnated) by your lived experience.

4. Pick a word and explore the different meanings it can have and how each meaning engages a different internal representation. Then let yourself free write any associations, meanings, memories, or fantasies it inspires. Try this with a concrete word, like “chair, “and an abstract word, like “inspiration.”

5. Take a set of 5-10 abstract words (like: creativity, gratitude, achievement, expectation, etc.) and combine these words with unspecified verbs (like: learn, realize, strength, discover, expands). Have fun, Be playful. Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense. Example: We learned the power of creativity to inspire achievement through positive expectancy. The practice of gratitude expands our capacity to appreciate life and strengthens our resilience. Discovering this for ourselves , as writers, allows us to engage our audience on a deeper level.

6. Write about a time when communication broke down and describe it metaphorically (Cabral: It does not glisten;” and lacks the aura of presence.) How might you describe it?

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