Cento Poetry!!!

A Cento Poem (or At least an attempt)

Well, son, I'll tell you: (Hughes)

Abortions will not let you forget (Brooks)

the pleasure of loneliness (Giovanni)

against the pain (Giovanni)

of loving you (Giovanni)

[and]

Because I could not stop for Death (Dickinson)

yours is the Earth and everything in it (Kipling)

And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my Son (Kipling)

I took lines from some of my favorite poems to create this Cento Poem (collage poem). The first line is from Langston Hughes' "Mother to Son." The second line comes from Gwendolyn Brooks' "The Mother." Lines 3, 4, and 5 come from Nikki Giovanni's "Balances." Of course, [and] comes from my head. Line 7 comes from Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death." Lastly, lines 8 and 9 come from Rudyard Kipling's "If."

This Cento Poem (or poem quilt as I like to call it) somehow, by the grace of poetry, makes sense. Each poem ties into one another in such a way that allows for various lines to be pulled from their original setting and placed in a collage that flows. The first line of the poem is the first line of Hughes' "Mother to Son." In the poem the speaker is addressing the hardships of life and how quitting is not an option to her son. The second line is the first line of Brooks' "The Mother." "The Mother" is a poem in which the speaker addresses the issue of abortion and how mothers who fall victim to aborting their unborn child(ren), for whatever reason, place guilt upon themselves due to their child's missed chance(s). I chose Giovanni's "Balances" because I feel like balancing is very importing when dealing with life and death and the relationships we experience in between the two events, especially those between parent and child. In "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," the speaker tells the tale of how s/he, never really chose death, but rather it chose her. The last two lines from Kipling's "If" is the concluding message the speaker gives to his or her son following an instruction guide of how to live life.

By far, this is one of my favorite poetry exercises!