Danielle Blau in Poets & Writers:
Whenever I’m feeling uninspired, I think: Somewhere, somebody is doing something right now. You may say this sounds less like a hype mantra and more like the mother of all mediocre movie taglines; you would not be wrong. Nevertheless, this thought is, for me, a surefire poem-generator—lifting me up, up, and away from the well-worn facticity of myself, out into the contemporaneous “Mysteries” of unknown others and their unknown lives.
So think of the following as a negative capability tune-up, an exercise in temporary self-displacement—an empathic immersion program, if you will.
More here.