The good folks at The Poetry Collaborative invited me to participate in a poetry prompt. The exercise uses American Sentences written by people in the collaborative. An American Sentence is a poetic form created by Allen Ginsberg. Basically, American Sentences are limited to seventeen syllables.
Our exercise was to take the American Sentences and arrange them in a cento. Again, I’m being basic, but a cento is a poem which is composed entirely of lines used from another author (or authors) and arranged in a specific pattern.
My poem is not a cento at all. I was inspired by the beautiful sentences I saw over at the collaborative, and I just stole words.
That’s the beauty of The Poetry Collaborative. There are no rigid rules. It is meant to be a catalyst for creativity. I would like to do a cento with these sentences eventually, but for now, I have a working draft of a new poem. Please check them out. And play along!
If you go to their home page, you can see the American Sentences which were written for the prompt. Go to this link to see the original idea:
http://thepoetrycollaborative.org/2008/09/06/writing-prompt-the-cento/
I’ve been having a lot of fun looking at what they have done at the collaborative. There is excellent work going on over there. Be sure to tell them just how awesome they are.
Here’s my draft. It’s a love poem for my Mr. Gator. Come to think of it, a gator is a good metaphor for me. A female gator ferociously protects her young. Has a thick hide. Loves the swamp. Might attack if hungry. Otherwise, she’ll just stare at you and wonder why you’re in her woods. Has a big mouth. Yep. That’s me.
Intentions
Alligators have them.
Silent, surfacing slow
searching for dens
in winter, forgetting
water, food, breath.
.
I have them, too.
Salt-blue, suspended,
closing the lenses,
waiting for winter
to take me down
low, shifting
black water trails,
.
between sweet
cypress knees,
creaking pine, sky
split open, red,
where you and I
will dig deep
.
then sink soft
into a muddy bed
of bubbled swamp,
past sleeping snakes,
through dark roots,
one half-moment
of slow beats,
so warm, gone.