cento
PRONUNCIATION:
(SEN-to) 
MEANING:
noun: A literary work, especially a poem, composed of parts taken from works of other authors.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin cento (patchwork). Earliest documented use: 1605.
NOTES:
Nobel-prize-winning poet T.S. Eliot’s observation is relevant to centos: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion.”
Examples of centos:
The Oxford Cento by David Lehman
The Dong With the Luminous Nose by John Ashbery
USAGE:
“Louis Zukofsky continued to write … a play, a novella, a book of criticism, a 500-page cento of philosophy in homage to Shakespeare …”
Bob Perelman; Finding His Voice; Tikkun (Berkeley, California); May/Jun 2007.
Bob Perelman; Finding His Voice; Tikkun (Berkeley, California); May/Jun 2007.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas-covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be. -Douglas Adams, author (11 Mar 1952-2001)
Visit Wordsmith.org for more on poetic forms.