Hello, everyone! today I’d like to present a cento that I’ve created. A cento is a piece written by using lines from other poets to create something new. When forming the process of this cento, I wanted to give the meaning to a specific dark apparent theme while also having it with a bit more of a musical tone. The theme I wanted to portray reflects the dark side of peer pressure and what potentially looking up to someone in your life can do to one psyche. To capture that feeling, I needed to find lines that either were or when potentially stitched together can bring that element of darkness and eerie nature I desired. Now that’s just easy. First thinking of potential lines that would fit the criteria, my mind immediately came across Patricia Smith’s “Skinhead.” A poem for those who may not know, it is a piece that goes into the persona of a ‘skinhead’ and their views on the state of America.
Using some of her lines was a must as she used certain ones that already capture a skinhead’s true darkness, which I was happy to use in this cento. With that in mind, it was only a matter of time before I found the lines when stitched together for example lines from Oliver de la Paz’s poem, “In Defense of small towns,” and Vievve Francis’s poem “Sugar and Brine: Ella’s Understanding,” helped me created the first few lines that helped me establish the tone that I wanted right when I first started my piece. I also decided to apply repetitional elements. Mainly with a line I’ve found when reading Jay Beatty’s poem, “Sister as Moving Object.” I believed in the context within this cento, it was used to help emphasize the main focus of the poem while also portraying the central meaning of what my poem has to offer. All of these lines on their own could mean something different but I found that these lines and lines such as these have helped me see the true stitching potential that one can come across when forming a cento.
Looking back at all the processes and steps that were taken to get the piece the way it was, it felt like a lot of trial and error. In my first attempts at creating this cento, I had a lot of lines that I potentially wanted to use, however, using them all would make the message and the dark tone of the piece less and less affected. So, I thoughtfully took out lines one by one, carefully stitched certain lines that I thought would have been the most affected, and created the piece I’m presenting today. This cento helps also to remind me why peer feedback is one of the most important aspects of writing. During the workshopping process, I was given a lot of feedback and suggestions to help make my first draft of the cento into what it is today. This final product can be said to be just as much the community that helped me build it as much as it is mine own. While also not forgetting the pieces from the poets that provide the lines to make this possible. Allow me to proudly present the cento that controls the darkness. “Scrawled.”
Jovaughn Williams- Prose Editor: Jovaughn Williams is a junior transfer student from the College of Dupage. He’s majoring in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and a minor in Psychology. If he’s not getting his hands dirty in a sport, he likes to spend his free time reading comic books, writing stories, watching movies, going crazy at the gym, and hanging out with his friends. His major goal is to bring his writing skills to the next level, eventually becoming a novelist so he can have another way of spreading his creativity to the world. His favorite authors included the likes of Pierce Brown, James Dasher, and Cherie Dimaline.