“I think that what happens in my poetic work in the future will depend on my being knocked in the face, and thrown flat, and given cancer, and all kinds of other things short of senile dementia.”

What follows are the authors’ discussions on the first stirrings, the germination of a poem, or a work of fiction. Any number of headings would be appropriate: Beginnings, The Starting Point, etc. Inspiration would be as good as any.