A Related Quote

A very funny book, so far, by the way... it made me laugh out loud even past the 45-minute mark on the exercise bike in the Y gym. And that's saying something. Anyhow, I thought I would post it, not as an actual prompt, but just in solidarity.

How are those poetry exercises coming? Did you do that thing I mentioned where you write down every real story somebody tells you or that you overhear in a twenty-four period? Did I mention that exercise? Maybe not. I don't mean the stories that come to you on electric screens or through car loudspeakers but the ones from right around you. I overheard a story at the bank yesterday about a car-repair place that overcharged. And then somebody told me a story about a dog who ate a sock. The vet couldn't "shift it," so he removed the sock surgically and now the dog is doing well. And there were other stories, too. If you listen to them, the stories and fragments of stories you hear can sometimes slide right into your poem and twirl around in it. Then later you cut out the story and the poem has a mysterious feeling of charged emptiness, like the dog after the operation.

- Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist