☀️ Dig for a Cento!

An invitation to adventure!

Here on The Raft, a “Dig” is a surprise writing invitation, nudging you to “dig” deeper into the current of your own creativity and benefit from its flow. You’re welcome to tweak a Dig however you’d like. You can even respond in media other than the written word.

For this Dig, I invite you to pull a book off your shelf and compose a cento.

What the heck is a cento?

A cento is a time-honored literary form, usually a poem. It’s created exclusively from lines or phrases lifted from the work(s) of another author (or authors). You assemble the excerpts in whatever order you wish, thereby bringing to life a rich, new text. When doing this, you don’t have to worry about copyright violations. But it’s wise (and respectful) to credit your source(s)—e.g., list them at the end of the cento, or provide an annotated version of your work, line by line.

Here’s a cento that I created—and how I did it

If you subscribe to Staying Power, another of my Raft newsletters, you received the following cento on Sunday. I created it from May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude, a work of prose that has long lived on my bookshelf.

I began by perusing the passages I’d underlined while reading and rereading Sarton’s Journal over the decades. I jotted down words and phrases that especially “shimmered,” along with their page numbers. Finally, I started assembling a poem from those “shimmerings.”

Initially, I had no idea what the cento’s theme would be. I just let the process lead where it would.

(Here’s the annotated version.)

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WHAT IS GIVEN
Phyllis Cole-Dai

          a cento after May Sarton*

I woke to the meadow bright silver with frost
and brilliant sunlight through yellow leaves over the barn.
What if I cannot find myself inside it?

I suffer from the tearing up of roots.
Loss has made everything sharp.
Angers take the marrow of my energy.
I feel it draining out like sand.
I am forced to my knees again and again.

We are never far from death.
But there is nothing that we suffer
that does not hold the seed.
When help is needed, it is there.

This morning, two small miracles:
The first is light.
In a supreme moment of light,
one becomes aware of the sacred.
It is all a matter of getting
to the center of the beam,
to live in the changing.

Then, the delight of space to be:
a whole day before me, an open place,
a lovely shelter in which to welcome a guest—
real life, to be taken in and cherished.

Look long enough, with absolute attention,
at a flower, a stone, the bark of a tree, a cloud—
they are presences.
Something like revelation takes place.
Something is given.
Each holds the whole mystery.
(Look through me and find yourself.)

Whatever peace I know
rests in the wrinkled purple eggplant
standing up in a bowl surrounded by sweet potatoes.


*All lines from May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1973).

Dig for a cento! Send me your finished work by the end of January.

Send your cento to me at phyllis@phylliscoledai.com.

I won’t critique your cento; I won’t even be able to comment on it, as I’ll be in the middle of a cross-country move at the time. But I’ll certainly read and appreciate your work.

If enough Rafters share a cento with me, I’ll happily set up a “Cento Celebration” on Zoom for everybody to enjoy in mid-winter. How’s that sound?