For today’s poetry practice I thought I would be a bit lazy. Except it turns out that what I picked is not as easy as I thought it would be. I was researching new poetry forms to give a whirl and the cento appealed. Poets. org set out the guidelines for a cento here. They call it a patchwork poem, which does have alliteration. But I kind of feel it is a Mash Up. My own attempt does not use complete lines from a poet in every line. Some only use a fragment, or, in one instance, literally mash up two in a single line.
In view of my gratitude brief for November in terms of subject I feel today’s poetry practice celebrates my thanks to the lineage of poets stretching back into antiquity. The subject, Hope, may reflect what some are feeling today.
Hope Mash up
I stood out in the open cold.
The dark, too, blooms and sings.
We all approach the edge of the same blackness.
When the world falls in around you,
the sun rises in spite of everything.
A joy, a depression, a meanness…
When the worst thing happens
Time flies, hope flags, life plies a wearied way.
You see behind every face the mental emptiness.
Hope is the hardest love to carry.
The thing with feathers doesn’t need anything
from my old bitterness.
And just for those who are interested in knowing which poets got picked for the patchwork poem, this is the line by line reference.xds p
Richard Eberhart
Wendell Berry
Elaine Feinstein
Naomi Shihab Nye
Derek Mahon
Rumi
U.A. Fanthorpe
Christina Rosetti
T.S. Eliot
Jane Hirshfield
Emily Dickinson/Naomi Shihab Nye
Antoniio Machado
That’s amazing Bee!
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Thanks, Brid.
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Oh, I am going to try this form!
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Please share!
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