The Cento: A Collection of Collage Poems

(Paperback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

As Gertrude Stein might have put it, a cento is a collage is a mix tape is a video montage.

This hypothetical description is fitting in a number of ways. Although the cento form is ancient--in existence since at least the days of Virgil and Homer--it was also used to striking effect in the Modern era: consider, for example, T. S. EliotAEs The Waste Land and Ezra PoundAEs Cantos.

More recent centos include John AshberyAEs \u201cThe Dong with the Luminous Nose, \u201d Peter GizziAEs \u201cOde: Salute to The New York School 1950-1970\u201d (a libretto), Connie HersheyAEs \u201cEcstatic Permutations, \u201d and the \u201cSplit This Rock Poetry Festival--Cento, March 23, 2008\u201d (a collaborative protest poem delivered in front of the White House).

The Cento: A Collection of Collage Poems, edited by Theresa Malphrus Welford and with an introduction by David Lehman, features an extensive sampling of centos, collage poems, and patchwork poems written by Nicole Andonov, Lorna Blake, Alex Cigale, Allan Douglass Coleman, Philip Dacey, Sharon Dolin, Annie Finch, Jack Foley, Kate Gale, Dana Gioia, Sam Gwynn, H. L. Hix, David Lehman, Eric Nelson, Catherine Tufariello, and many others.

Reviews

The Cento is an anthology of poems that combine place, voice, and authorship to carry the reader away from familiar beginnings. Most of the poems repurpose, rewrite, and reorganize an original document, whether its a piece by a well-known poet or prose writer, Marvel comics, New York Times obituaries, grocery labels, or junk mail. This collection is a reminder of the many places where poems begin and the paths they can follow. Sharon Dolins Chard Endings, a cento-sonnet using the closing lines of poems by ReneChar, finishes:

Keep us violent and friends to the bees on the horizon
Such is the heart
I hurt and am weightless

Chlo Yelena Miller

Theresa Welford's anthology of poems in that curious form the cento is a true labor of love. In an array of patchwork poems by poets famous and poets new, The Cento: A Collection of Collage Poems reveals both the dangers of the form (creating chaos) and its rich rewards when performed with wit and creativity on the part of the poet (as in R. S. Gwynn's hilarious cannibalization of The Norton Anthology of Poetry). No one will supercede this achievement for a long time, I'd guess maybe not for a hundred years.

X.J. Kennedy

Author Bio

Theresa Malphrus Welford, who hails from a working-class background in the state of Georgia, has taught at the University of Georgia, Louisiana State University, Western Carolina University, and the University of Cincinnati. At Georgia Southern, where she currently teaches, she has developed a number of writing courses, including Writing the Animal and Writing the Undead. The students in Theresa's First-Year Writing and Creative Writing courses regularly participate in Books of Hope, in which they research, write, and illustrate books for young readers in Uganda, Africa. She and her husband are very involved with local animal-rescue groups, and are the happy parents of nine beasts, former rescues all.

Theresa is currently working on several projects: creative nonfiction, poetry, and storybooks for children. She has published poetry, essays, articles, book chapters, as well as The Paradelle: An Anthology (Red Hen Press, 2005). She is the editor of The Cento: A Collection of Collage Poems, which was published by Red Hen Press in 2011.