From the Latin word for “patchwork,” the cento (or collage poem) is a poetic form composed entirely of lines from poems by other poets. Definition of the poetry form taken from poets.org
Suddenly there came a tapping,1
Out of the night that covers me.2
Who are these coming to the sacrifice,3
With throats unslaked, with black lips?4
We wear the mask that grins and lies,5
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light.6
Though it be darkness there,7
Some say the world will end in fire.8
No man is an island,9
And all the men and women merely players.10
We passed the school where children played,11
And that has made all the difference.12
Footnotes:
1) The Raven – Edgar Allen Poe / 2) Invictus – William Ernest Henley / 3) Ode to a Grecian Urn – John Keats / 4) The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – Samuel Taylor Coleridge / 5) We Wear the Mask – Paul Laurence Dunbar / 6) Dover Beach – Matthew Arnold / 7) There is another sky – Emily Dickenson / 8) Fire and Ice – Robert Frost / 9) No Man is an Island – John Donne / 10) All the World’s a Stage – William Shakespeare / 11) Because I could not stop for Death – Emily Dickenson / 12) The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost
Written for Chel Owen’s Terrible Poetry Contest (2022/02/11) at chelowens.com
Photo Credit: Unknown.
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