Where I Steal My Ideas From!

A while back, I wrote about how I get ideas for poems all day long. But recently, I was asked to speak to a writing class (of adults) about how I read as a writer. Specifically, how I read as a poet. As I prepared for this talk, I realized that I often get ideas for poems from other people’s writing.

Here are a few examples.

While reading The Mephisto Club, a mystery novel by Tess Gerritsen, I came across the following passage:

"She walked through the piazzetta and headed up the narrow alley leading to Via di Fontebranda. Her route took her toward the town’s ancient fountain house, past buildings that once housed medieval craftsmen and later slaughterhouses. The Fontebranda was a Siena landmark once celebrated by Dante, and its waters were still clear, still inviting, even after the passage of centuries. She had walked here once beneath the full moon. According to legend, that was when werewolves came to bathe in the waters, just before transforming back to their human forms. That night, she’d glimpsed no werewolves, only drunken tourists. Perhaps they were one and the same."