Post by Randacello (MirandaRae) on May 26, 2003 17:47:31 GMT -5
The word cento is Latin for 'patchwork', and basically, a cento is a patchwork.
From The Poetry Dictionary by John Drury..... "A poem made up of passages from poems by one more more authors; a patchwork of quotations; a literary collage; a pastiche (in its sense as a mixture of poetic excerpts).
Originally a cento was composed entirely of quotations from a single source, such as the Roman poet Virgil. Although it began as a game for scholars, it has become an allusive, postmodernist, intertextual form, as in John Ashbery's 'To a Waterfowl' and Charles Tomlinson's 'A Biography of the Author: A Cento'. The end of TS Eliot's The Waste Land, with its barrage of quoted fragments, becomes a cento. Marianne Moore's liberal interpolation of quotations in her poems is similar in method."
I've found in writing a cento that taking all the bits and pieces (all the quotes) and turning them into one coherent piece is key. Here is my first cento, culled from the lyrics of the songs I was listening to the week I wrote the piece.
Portrait Of The Woman Hiding In My Music Library
(Copyright 11/4/00 by Miranda Rae)
Tell you about the maiden with wrought-iron soul.
She's blood, flesh, and bone.
No tucks or silicone.
Satisfaction oozes from her pores.
She keeps rings on her fingers,
Marble on her floors.
A face that could hijack your breath,
The legs of a thoroughbred,
That's what they said.
Her hair reminds me of a warm, safe place
Where as a child I'd hide,
And when you walk into her eyes
You won't believe
The way she's always paying
For a debt she never owes.
She wears denim wherever she goes,
Says she's gonna get some records by The Status Quo.
Oh how she rocks
In Keds and tube socks,
And while she looks so sad in photographs
I absolutely love her
When she smiles.
Woman, woman,
She's out her mind
And simply out of soul.
She came in through the bathroom window
Protected by a silver spoon,
And she softly said,
"Wonder is your night light.
Magic is your dream."
She says she likes my face.
She says she owns the place.,
And I can tell from the stage
That she can't let go
And she can't relax.
She licked rock cocaine suckers,
Laughed,
Said her mom's doing mine.
She motioned to me
That she wanted to leave
And go somewhere warm,
But something always comes up,
Something always makes her stay,
And still no picture postcards from LA.
YOUR CHALLENGE FOR THIS WEEK: Write a cento. Cull your quotes from whatever source you choose...song lyrics, favorite poems or quotes, the newspaper, movie or TV dialogue, the titles of CD's or books in your house, ANYTHING. Please post all works as new threads in this forum, and as the first reply to each work list your sources. Feel free to comment on everyone else's offerings. I can't wait to see what you come up with!
If you have an idea for a challenge please let me know. I'd love to hear it.
Miranda
From The Poetry Dictionary by John Drury..... "A poem made up of passages from poems by one more more authors; a patchwork of quotations; a literary collage; a pastiche (in its sense as a mixture of poetic excerpts).
Originally a cento was composed entirely of quotations from a single source, such as the Roman poet Virgil. Although it began as a game for scholars, it has become an allusive, postmodernist, intertextual form, as in John Ashbery's 'To a Waterfowl' and Charles Tomlinson's 'A Biography of the Author: A Cento'. The end of TS Eliot's The Waste Land, with its barrage of quoted fragments, becomes a cento. Marianne Moore's liberal interpolation of quotations in her poems is similar in method."
I've found in writing a cento that taking all the bits and pieces (all the quotes) and turning them into one coherent piece is key. Here is my first cento, culled from the lyrics of the songs I was listening to the week I wrote the piece.
Portrait Of The Woman Hiding In My Music Library
(Copyright 11/4/00 by Miranda Rae)
Tell you about the maiden with wrought-iron soul.
She's blood, flesh, and bone.
No tucks or silicone.
Satisfaction oozes from her pores.
She keeps rings on her fingers,
Marble on her floors.
A face that could hijack your breath,
The legs of a thoroughbred,
That's what they said.
Her hair reminds me of a warm, safe place
Where as a child I'd hide,
And when you walk into her eyes
You won't believe
The way she's always paying
For a debt she never owes.
She wears denim wherever she goes,
Says she's gonna get some records by The Status Quo.
Oh how she rocks
In Keds and tube socks,
And while she looks so sad in photographs
I absolutely love her
When she smiles.
Woman, woman,
She's out her mind
And simply out of soul.
She came in through the bathroom window
Protected by a silver spoon,
And she softly said,
"Wonder is your night light.
Magic is your dream."
She says she likes my face.
She says she owns the place.,
And I can tell from the stage
That she can't let go
And she can't relax.
She licked rock cocaine suckers,
Laughed,
Said her mom's doing mine.
She motioned to me
That she wanted to leave
And go somewhere warm,
But something always comes up,
Something always makes her stay,
And still no picture postcards from LA.
YOUR CHALLENGE FOR THIS WEEK: Write a cento. Cull your quotes from whatever source you choose...song lyrics, favorite poems or quotes, the newspaper, movie or TV dialogue, the titles of CD's or books in your house, ANYTHING. Please post all works as new threads in this forum, and as the first reply to each work list your sources. Feel free to comment on everyone else's offerings. I can't wait to see what you come up with!
If you have an idea for a challenge please let me know. I'd love to hear it.
Miranda