(From Ireland, a novel by Frank Delaney)

     "As you probably know, nobody can actually write a poem. There's no such thing as writing a poem. That's not how poems are made. Oh, yes, there's the physical business of pen, ink and paper, but that isn't whence a poem comes. Nor may you send out and fetch a poem from where it's been living. No, like it or like it not, you have to wait for a poem to arrive.
     The people we call poets, by which I mean true, real poets-they're merely very keen listeners who've learned to recognize when a poem is dropping by. Then they copy down what the poem's telling them in their heads."