the exoticism of the "arabian nights" continued to interest ravel. in the early years of the 20th century he met the poet tristan klingsor, who had recently published a collection of free-verse poems under the title "shéhérazade", inspired by rimsky-korsakov's symphonic suite of the same name, a work that ravel also much admired. ravel and klingsor were fellow members of a group of young creative artists calling themselves "les apaches" (the hooligans); the poet read some of his new verses to the group, and ravel was immediately taken with the idea of setting three of them. he asked klingsor to make some minor changes before he set to work on the music.