Welcome to Oulipost! Day One – Quote Cento

Ah, the cento.  A classic poetic form, hailing back to ancient Greece.  The cento is simplicity itself – you just take lines from other poets, remix them into an order that pleases you, and voila! You have a cento.  Sounds simple, right?  Well, maybe, but there is no poetry in the Boston Globe, today.  So, instead of using lines from other poems, the Oulipost Cento assignment is to take quotes which you find, and rearrange them into a poem.  Any quotes you like, you can mix and match, you can use part or all of a quote.

What I learned from today’s exercise is – A) the sports section has the most quotes, by far. B) I am not very interested in what people have to say about sports. C) newspaper writers use a lot of cliches, especially when they are quoting people. D) centos are very, very hard!

Here is my Quote Cento, from the April 1st Boston Globe.  You can see quote centos by other Ouliposters at the Found Poetry Review.  Happy National Poetry Month!

I Fell in Love at First Sound

Sitting here today, I
cannot tell you why it
took years for your debut.

You can feel the wind; every
cell, every particle of matter
in the world made us ready.

It’s been like an endless winter,
and it’s raining; it got up in
that wind, one of those salvos.

No one dreamed – at least, I
didn’t.  It’s a miracle; I want
to keep it going.

There is no coming back.
The process we are going
through now is inevitable.

Bibliography:
Benbow, Julian. C6 A happy return for Sizemore.
Booth, William. A5 Ex-Israeli leader convicted of taking bribes
Goldstein, Meredith; Shanahan, Mark. B16 Louis-Drefus happy in the Hub
Leung, Shirley; Ross, Casey. A11 Unease over a go-slow BRA
Luna, Taryn. B11 Growing Pains: for garden stores, sprint is on
Marchione, Marilynn. A9 Obesity surgery may reduce diabetes
Pear, Robert. A2 Software error, traffic snarl health care sign-ups
Reed, James. G6 Groundbreaking Lavender Country album gets new life
Sullivan, James. G8 Glacier lover’s efforts crystallized US environmental thought
Trister, Noah. C7 Fresh faces lift Detroit past KC
Wald, Matthew. B9 GM withheld key data, official to tell Congress
Weesner, Ted. G14 From Page to Stage