From the Latin word for “patchwork,” the cento (or collage poem) is a poetic form composed entirely of lines from poems by other poets. The collage poem may use full or partial lines, but should include more than just a couple of words from each line.
Modern centos and collage poems can also take lines from non-poetic sources, such as news articles, nonfiction essays, memoirs, fiction, how-to instructions, recipes, the comments section from a blog post, biographies, histories, and other sources.
Whatever the source for your lines, look for unexpected connections, interesting contrasts, associative leaps, and surprising juxtapositions.
Here are ten poems previously published on Zingara Poetry Review to draw from for today’s cento:
The Zingara Project