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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. EliotÆs The Waste Land and Ezra PoundÆs Cantos.
More recent centos include John AshberyÆs \u201cThe Dong with the Luminous Nose,\u201d Peter GizziÆs \u201cOde: Salute to The New York School 1950-1970\u201d (a libretto), Connie HersheyÆs \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.
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 it’s 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 Dolin’s “Char’d Endings,” a cento-sonnet using the closing lines of poems by Rene’Char, finishes:
Keep us violent and friends to the bees on the horizon
Such is the heart
I hurt and am weightless
— Chloé Yelena Miller