Doris Corti
That moment when you start a poem can come quite suddenly and you want to get ideas and words down fast. The idea or theme for your poem may be something you remember, or perhaps it is something you have just seen. Whatever the theme you need to jot down a few words to capture it. These may be your opening lines or they may be the title for your poem.
Let us imagine that you are writing about a picture you may have seen in a book or an art gallery. The first thing to do is to describe the picture and your thoughts on it in a few words. These first words, sentences or phrases are important although you might find as you progress that they change a little.