So, this is my first cento, which (for those of you unfamiliar with this form) is a poem comprised of lines from other pieces. The parameters and span of the poems you choose are entirely optional. Each of the lines I've chosen are in their completely original state, thus the grammar and context is less then perfect. I'd love comments and tips, but bear with me, as this is my first attempt!
For the sake of clarity, I've written the poem as a whole; the corresponding references are located below, and they follow the pattern of the poem.
Without further ado:
Cento: Bewailing the Loss of Young Life
Guns aren’t lawful;
innocent, they would never hurt anybody
and can be robbed of speech
Now this particular girl
Here lies a lady of beauty and high degree
Sick with a fear that had no form
I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
One day I wrote her name upon the strand
Life contracts and death is expected
Tell me also, to what conclusïon
As if her song could have no ending;
And in silence prayeth she.
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
More wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were
How can you see without a light?
Shining in the sun
Awake, arise, or be for ever fall’n
O blissful God! that art so just and true.
Lo, how that thou bewrayest murder alway.
Not yesterday I learned to know
Was enraged and driven mad
I come here alone and sit
for a long time in the care of the Almighty.”
Meanwhile the heinous and despiteful act
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
“Résumé” by Dorothy Parker
“I Go Back to May 1937” by Sharon Olds
“Silence” by Marianne Moore
“Spinster” by Sylvia Plath
“Here Lies a Lady” by John Crowe Ransom
“The Mill” by Edward Arlington Robinson
“I knew a woman lovely in her bones” by Theodore Roethke
“Not Waving But Drowning” by Stevie Smith
“One day I wrote her name upon the strand” by Edmund Spenser
“The Death of a Soldier” by Wallace Stevens
“The Wife of Bath’s Prologue; 115” by Geoffrey Chaucer
“The Solitary Reaper” by William Wordsworth
“Christabel (Part I)” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Part IV)” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Paradise Lost (IX.310)” by John Milton
“Tiger” by Spike Milligan
“Teeth” by Spike Milligan
“Paradise Lost” by John Milton
“The Nun’s Priest’s Tale (Line: 4240)” by Geoffrey Chaucer
“The Nun’s Priest’s Tale (Line: 4241)” by Geoffrey Chaucer
“My November Guest” by Robert Frost
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Line: 1580)” by Anonymous (W.S. Merwin Edition)
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Line: 1531)” by Anonymous (W.S. Merwin Edition)
“Beowulf (Line: 3109)” by Anonymous (Seamus Heaney Edition)
“Paradise Lost” by John Milton
“Mad Girl’s Love Song“ by Sylvia Plath
