Mindful of the importance of word usage for accurate verbal or written description the paper aims to develop Esther Bick's caution about the use of words in infant observation and clinical work. It is suggested that this caution was part of Bick's process of creating a state of mind akin to negative capability, allowing for the accurate perception of experience and its subsequent translation into words. From this point the paper suggests that the task of translation for clinicians and observers benefits from a detailed consideration of the technical writings of certain poets who have explored the problem of translating experience and ideas into words. Overall the paper attempts to draw clinicians' attention to the sensual quality of observation, and thus similarly to the words used to translate what is seen and experienced.