We almost always think of the effects of other people on our writing as a "bad" thing - we worry that we are plagiarizing, or we're not original, if we use others' thoughts, opinions, writing. But this is not necessarily so. We don't live inside a vacuum. We are not separate from everything else. You can ride the words of others right into your own art, into your own mind. Here's a great exercise. Pick a poem, any poem. Pick a line from that poem, maybe the first line, maybe the one that most resonates within you. Write it down as a first line in a new poem, or an essay, or just a paragraph that you may or may not use sometime. Let that line take you where you want to go. Here is something I wrote, using a line from a poem by Hildegarde of Bingen: I am the rain coming from the dew that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life./I call forth tears, the aroma of holy work./I am the yearning for good.

Here is what I wrote: I am the yearning for good. I feel this yearning as an ache, like I feel after pulling weeds in a choked and neglected garden. The pain in my back and knees hurts good, it tells me I am virtuous, a savior, and without me the small peppermint sprouts and the baby calendula would not grow to full glory. Without me those olive drab weeds would squeeze them to death and their healing possibilities would be unknown, merely compost in the dark spaces of the underground. I am the yearning for good, the good of belly laughter and the good that you see in a stranger's eyes sometimes — that naked longing for connection and the touch of gentle fingers. I yearn for the good of children painting, covering themselves and the carpet with thick yellow globs and long blue streaks, and even tasting some of it deep inside thier mouths; their tongues are green with the joy of creation. I am yearning to be with those children, to lie beside them on their sleeping mats and close my eyes in peace, knowing that no one will disturb my paint-soaked hair.