A cento is a poem formed from lines of poems written by other poets. Latin for “patchwork,” the cento is composed like a collage or quilt, and honors others’ poems while presenting a unique work. For an example of a cento, read Linda Bierds’ Lepidopteran: A Cento.
Compose a cento that describes your home, past or present, real or imagined. Make sure to note the source poets for the lines you incorporate into your cento. We encourage you to use lines from your favorite poets, and to find new voices in the Poetry Foundation's online archives.
Centos for Further Reading
- “Cento Between the Ending and the End,” Cameron Awkward-Rich
- “She-Poets Cento,” Kate Daniels
- “CENTO,” Sarah Gambito
- Wolf Centos, Simone Muench
- “Cento for the Night I Said, ‘I Love You,’” Nicole Sealey
Maggie Queeney (she/her) is the author of In Kind (University of Iowa Press, 2023), winner of the 2022 Iowa Poetry Prize, and settler (Tupelo Press, 2021). She received the 2019 Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize, a Ruth Stone Scholarship, and an Individual Artists Program Grant from the City of Chicago in both 2019 and 2022. Her work appears in the Kenyon Review, Guernica, the Missouri Review, and The…