The day I became a poet was a sunny day of no particular ominousness. I was scuttling along in my usual furtive way, suspecting no ill, when a large invisible thumb descended from the sky and pressed down on the top of my head. A poem formed. It was quite a gloomy poem: the poems of the young usually are. It was a gift, this poem – a gift from an anonymous donor, and, as such, both exciting and sisnister at the same time.

(Margaret Atwood, lecture on poetry writing)