Unlost

 Unlost Journal publishes all kinds of hybrid pieces that use source materials: cut-ups, collages, erasures, centos, found poems, etc. Always stimulating to have a look at what Dale Wisely and the crew is publishing.

The latest edition (#30) includes a cut-up/collage with a twist by me (replacing the words writer/s with winter/s), called "Winter: Echoes." Since winter lingers (at least here in Japan), it's a timely read. Enjoy all the creative offerings in this issue, and previous ones as well!

What about THAT?

New cento in THAT Literary Review, volume 5, p. 32 If you are inclined. This volume includes strong work by Laurie Kolp, Tobi Alfier, C L Bledsoe, and Cameron Morse, among others.

A Few More Centos

Thanks to editor Diana Love of the Coachella Review blog for publishing two more centos. Yippee!

Cento at Stirring

Somehow I missed my cento going live last month at Stirring Lit , thanks to editor Luci Brown. So here it is, better late than never, Body Dysmorphia Cento.

New Cento at Juked

Thanks to editor Collier Nogues for publishing one  of my centos at Juked.

Fog Cento at Unlost Journal

Editor Dale Wisely at the Unlost Journal has graciously published my Fog Cento. Please enjoy.

Cento at Thrush

Friends, I have been obsessively writing (assembling perhaps is a better word) centos this summer. My first one is now at Thrush Poetry Journal, Dementia Cento. Thanks, Helen Vitoria, for believing in this form.

(And if you are not sure what a cento it, here's a discussion.)

NYT's Two Cents on the Cento

The New York Times blog has published a cento by David Lehman, plus an explanation of what a cento is (in their words, "A cento is a collage-poem composed of lines lifted from other sources -- often, though not always, from great poets of the past. In Latin the word cento means ''patchwork,'' and the verse form resembles a quilt of discrete lines stitched together to make a whole. The word cento is also Italian for ''one hundred,'' and some mosaic poems consist of exactly 100 lines culled by one poet from the work of another to pay tribute to him or her").

In this age of the sampling crazy, the cento suddenly seems new again. A poem that samples from other people's words (though not from poems) that I particularly love is Richard Kenney's  astonishing "A Colloquy of Ancient Men" from his book The Invention of the Zero. In this long poem pieces of quotations from Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Charles Darwin, Joseph Conrad, Isaac Newton, Max Planck, Herman Melville, Neils Bohr, Fred Hoyle, Mark Twain, and a few others are juxtaposed to great effect. (Here I am recommending yet another intertextalization of poetry and science. At least I know what I like!)

So, anybody up for a cento or another collage-like piece of writing? It's a different creative muscle to stretch.