Oulipost #1: Cento Poem

Oulipost begins today!

Every day this April, nearly 80 poets will write one poem per day by applying constrained writing techniques sourced from the Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle — or “workshop of potential literature”) group to text sourced from their daily local newspaper. This is the first of thirty prompts in the Oulipost project.

Oulipost #1: Quote Cento

When composing a cento, poets take lines from existing poems (traditionally without any alterations) and patch them together to form a new poem. Today, create a cento using only quotes referenced in newspaper articles. For example, if a newspaper article contained the line “It was a tragedy,” commented Detective Smith, the line, “It was a tragedy,” would be available for you to use in your poem. While you can’t change anything within the quotes themselves, you may choose to break a longer quote in half or use just part of a quote as needed.
Variations:

• Purist? Challenge yourself to write your cento using only complete quotes (sentences) as they appear in your articles.
• Add an additional constraint by challenging yourself to use only quotes sourced from a single article, single newspaper page or single newspaper section.

(snagged from the found poetry review blog)

 

California is shifting
with and through other companies

and the inventors
force the innovators
to more reuse
at what they are doing

we employ organisms
for irrigation
that are very professional

it's a good time

but i think
farmers use river water
from all kingdoms of life
no matter what happens

what we chose
that allows us to be creative
and less and less
at the point where
we are beginning
life forms

Source: Gold, Robert. "Shoring up the Global Ecology." Cape Cod Times. Woods Hole. Tuesday, April 1, 2014 Published: Page C1.