An idea and its development; how a poem begins

An experience (stars at night, ants carrying sugar, a hurt) makes us pause; a murmuring and a 'knocking' inside seek expression. The nature of the experience shapes the form: events become a story, a description an essay, an insight a poem.

Valmiki's first shloka came from grief at the separation of the Kronch couple; For Robert Frost, a poem happens when a feeling finds its thought, and then the thought finds its words. Rilke advises asking yourself in the silent hour of night: must I write?

We fail to write good poems when we do not stay honestly with our experiences. The same stimulus moves different poets differently: Subramania Bharati's 'Wind' is a destroyer to be befriended; Shelley's West Wind is both destroyer and preserver.

Keats held that the earth's poetry never dies. Start from a line or an idea, list every word that comes, then look for connections and images. A poem, the book says, needs the finest words set in the finest order; close synonyms allow interesting word play.

Basho heard rice-planting songs and called them the beginnings of poetry; the Garhwal Chipko song says the soil, water and forests are ours to protect. Poems are open to many meanings; Jibanananda Das's 'Windy Night' strings everyday words into wonder.