Thank you Alicia for your answer to my question -- I have to admit I was partly fishing for the kind of autobiographical detail you offer about the basement apartment. I know how beside-the-point such facts are, but I have to admit to finding them fascinating. Writers sometimes scoff at the question "where do you get your ideas?" -- and in that general form, it's impossible to answer and sounds silly (as if there were a particular cupboard you went to when you needed one).
But it really is interesting (to me anyway) to hear where the idea for a particular poem came from -- or how the poet got the idea to turn this experience into a poem (for example, when (if?) you saw a large bird of prey catch a squirrel, did you instantly know you wanted to write a poem about it?).
I think I only get one question (the one I already asked), but maybe I can get someone else (as unsophisticated as I am) to ask this question for me:
Do your ideas usually come to you in some particular way (a voice speaking a line or an image or....?) -- or is there no generalization you can make?
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