Your poem effectively begins at the first moment you’ve surprised or startled yourself. Throw away everything that preceded that moment, and begin with that moment. Stephen Dunn, Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry

 “Surely those folks who play their lives and their work eminently safe don’t often put themselves in the position where they can be startled or enlarged. Don’t put themselves near enough to the realm of the unknown where discovery resides, and joy has been rumored to appear.”
― Stephen Dunn, Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry