Naming What Was Not (Cento)
The dark: an ocean for us all.
We could fall off one edge
or another, like the letter
that falls in the middle of an eye,
as if what we wanted
were not the thing that falls.
Precisely what the body resists
the body is. If you know
the names of a bird in ten
languages, do you know any more
about the bird? I thought that
all this was perhaps nothing more
than a way of remembering:
distance grows in the bones.
What’s called hearer is hearing. Oh
this is the animal that never was.
Credits: Katherine Coles, Vicente Huidobro, Jane Hirshfield, Sean Hill, Arthur Sze, Dawn Lundy Martin, Cecilia Vicuña, Sean Hill, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Rainer Maria Rilke.
A cento is composed of lines from poems by other poets.
For further information and examples of the form, you might peruse the Academy of American Poets site: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poetic-form-cento
O at the Edges 
Interesting form, Robert…I may have to give it a whirl sometime (after NaNoWriMo). Your poem is quite intriguing.
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It’s a fun and challenging form. I enjoy sifting through poems for appropriate lines.
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Yes, I bookmarked the page so I can try it sometime…after NaNoWriMo’s finished 🙂
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Well done!
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Thank you, Leslie.
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Beautiful cento. You have a real gift for assemblage!
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Thanks, Daniel. I’d forgotten about this one. It was languishing in a folder…
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An awesome cento this is. I perhaps will give it a try. Thanks for sharing your works Bob, and I hope you’re well.
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Thanks, A-Jay. Give it a try!
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