Today’s featured poet, the lovely Ann Collins, brings us a community-building exercise in the form of a mega-cento stitched together mostly from work by poets writing here on Substack. Given the cento’s length, the repetition of some phrases, and the adaptation of a few single lines to multiple lines, the source poets’ names are listed alphabetically rather than by order of appearance. If you recognize one of your lines or phrases (I found a whole short stanza from one of my poems), feel free to drop a link in the comments and say more about your work.
SOURCE POETS
26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth), Sam Aureli, Edgar Ballantyne, Melanie Bettinelli, Conny Borgelioen, j j b r i n s k i, X. P. Callahan, Ann Collins, MK Creel, Josh Datko, Brian Funke, Kortney Garrison, Alan Girling (man of aran), James Hart, Lisa Jensen, Martin Mc Carthy, Thomas McKendry, Kim Nelson, Weston Parker, LeeAnn Pickrell, Jonathan Potter, Mark Rico, Thomas Rist, Alane Rollings, Margaret Ann Silver, Dick Whyte, Paul Wittenberger, and an anonymous Chinese poet who wrote in the 1st century BCE and was translated in the 20th century CE by Arthur Waley.
ANN COLLINS is a nurse, a naturalist, a contemplative, and one of the kindest people ever to grace our planet. She writes Microseasons on Substack.
Isn't it stunning to see the word-work of many quilted into a poem that invites the reader to snuggle in, get comfortable, read on?
I love this cento. (And what a treat it was to hear Ann reading it a couple weeks ago.) Such a beautiful braid, the conversations all pulled together!
I recognize my lines:
before the angelic 'Hail' fell
on the flowers of summer
like stones of ice.
They're from my poem 'Silent Mother?': https://melaniebettinelli.substack.com/p/silent-mother
I recognize a few other lines here and there from other people's poems as well. I hope everyone chimes in so I can catch more of them.