Dew dresses

From the Latin word for “patchwork garment,” a cento is a literary work collaged entirely from other authors’ verses or passages. In their earliest forms, centos were often composed as tribute, such as those by Byzantine empress Eudocia Augusta, which paid homage to Homer.
~Poetry Foundation

Happy Poetry Friday! How was your week?

An inspiring found poem today. Doesn't Elinor Ann Walker do a lovely job of stitching these lines together?

A Cento of Serene Length
by Elinor Ann Walker
title after Gertrude Stein

My body craves dresses, a single seam falling,
flowers swirling in a pattern,
a coral neck scarf. A hand (not mine)
restless under each buffeting layer,

so I alter the pattern to fit a phantom of me,
the blue and the dim and the dark cloths.
I began to feather-stitch a ring around the moon.

I have spread my dreams under your feet,
folded my sorrows. I have. I have...


read the rest here

Sources: Kim Addonizio, Mary Jo Bang, Andrea Blancas Beltran, Victoria Chang, Toi Derricotte, Rachel Hadas, Hazel Hall (more than one line), Saeed Jones, Deborah Paredez, Linda Pastan, Angela Shaw, Anya Silver, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, May Swenson, Chase Twichell, William Butler Yeats (more than one line).

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Robyn Hood Black is hosting the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Robyn!