About
The Form
Cento: a poetic form composed of lines from existing works.
The earliest known centos were written in late antiquity. Classical & Renaissance centos generally use lines from Virgil or Homer. Modern centos often use lines from multiple poets, but they vary in source material, citation style, and theme.
The word “cento” is derived from the Greek kéntron (κέντρων): patchwork garment. A modern selection of exactly one hundred lines may come from a false etymological connection to the Italian word cento: one hundred.
Examples
Classical Antiquity
Faltonia Betitia Proba. Cento Vergilianus de Laudibus Christi. 4th century.
Hosidius Geta. Medea. 462.
Aelia Eudocia. Homeric Centos. 5th century.
Renaissance
Justus Lipsius. Politicorum Libri Sex. 1589.
Etienne de Pleure. Sacra Aeneis. 1618.
Alexander Ross. Vergili Evangelisantis Christiados. 1634.
Modern
John Ashbery. “To a Waterfowl.” Locus Solus. Volume 1, Issue 2. 1961.
John Ashbery. “The Dong with the Luminous Nose.” Wakefulness. 1998.
Peter Gizzi. Ode: Salute to the New York School, 1950-1970. Letter Machine
Editions. 2012.
Simone Muench. Wolf Centos. Sarabande. 2014.
Online
Simone Muench. “Wolf Cento.” Academy of American Poets. 2011.
Mary Dalton. “Invitation Cards.” The Malahat Review. Autumn 2012.
Stephanie Young. “Cento For Love.” Poetry Foundation. April 3, 2014.
Emily Berry. “Freud’s War.” Poetry Foundation. June 2015.
Kate Daniels. “She-Poets Cento.” Plume. August 2015.
George McKim. “Cento – farewell, my kin, my mother’s children.” The Ilanot
Review. Winter 2016.
Sarah Gambito. “Cento.” American Poetry Review. May/June 2016.
Nicole Sealey. “Cento for the Night I Said, ‘I Love You’.” PEN America. August
29, 2017.
Linda Bierds. “Lepidopteran.” Poetry Magazine. 2017.
Erin Murphey. “Your Mother’s Maiden Name is Not a Secret.” Jet Fuel Review.
Spring 2018.
Cameron Awkward-Rich. “Cento between the Ending and the End.” Academy
of American Poets. August 30, 2018.
Jamila Woods. “On Naming Yourself (A Cento).” Poetry Foundation. 2022.
Anthologies
The Cento: a Collection of Collage Poems. Edited by Theresa Malphrus
Welford. Red Hen Press. 2011.