There are many types of poems that “frankenstein” other texts. Blackout (or erasure) poetry and cut-up poems find poems by choosing words and phrases within prose. The Cento, combines lines from several other poems, making sure to reference each poem and poet at the end. The golden shovel takes a line of a poem and uses each word as the end word of each line in the new poem. Can you think of others?
Example Poem: “Pineola” by Sy Hoahwah from Poetry Foundation
Pineola
Severed finger of a convicted murderer uncurls like a waking pet.
Demonic compass points toward the most dangerous direction to get home.
Its long yellow fingernail can pick any lock.
On the fishhook, the finger resembles a long, fat mealworm.
Most times, it’s lodged in the throats of my enemies
or hiding among the tampons of cops’ wives.
It avoids gold rings, bad luck.
When wearing this rot relic on a chain,
sunlight smells like stale curtains in a worn-out hearse.
Rain never hits my clothes.
Rooms seem hotter.
Radios turn on by themselves, always to the same Lucinda Williams song.
Use any mirror as a doorway, I come out into the same sweaty
bedroom from a previous life. I forget who is wearing whom.
I pierce the fingertip to draw up a will.
I dip the finger in water. I point it toward the sun. I flick it to make it rain.
Hanging on the wall,
I sleep under this bird, booger-picker, dream catcher,
missing piece of an inverted crucifix, rotting pencil.
It sleeps over me like an accusative God.
Around midnight, I wake up, the finger is typing in the next room.
What is it composing at this time of night?
Letters to a parole board,
love letters to the rest of the hand,
midnight sermons,
ransom notes pertaining to me,
memoirs about life, hanging from my neck …
~ Sy Hoahwah
Prompt: Use one of the “frankenstein”-ing poetry forms to write a poem about a dismembered body part.
Possible form: Blackout poetry, cut-up poetry, cento, or golden shovel
~
Poem 1. The Body Remembers Differently
(A Cento written in homage to the many voices that haunt my own.)
This is my mother’s land, and it was her mother’s before. (Celeste Foo, "Burial")
Our memory, suddenly sharpened, / examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, / promised walks never taken. (Maya Angelou, "When Great Trees Fall")
Tell all the truth but tell it slant— (Emily Dickinson, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant—.”)
When I am dead, my dearest, sing no sad songs for me; (Christina Rossetti, “When I am dead, my dearest.”)
My heart in hiding / Stirred for a bird,— (Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Windhover”).
O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, (William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2)
Yet ev’n these bones from insult to protect, (Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”)
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, (Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”)
How selfhood begins with a walking away, (C. Day-Lewis, “Walking Away”)
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30)
table mat stitched in blue. (Naomi Shihab Nye, “Blood”)
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, (T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”)
These fragments I have shored against my ruins. (Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” section 52)
These fragments I have shored against my ruins. (Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” section 52)
~ Oizys.
Poem 2. When Morning Hesitates
(A Golden Shovel, after “Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night.” from the poem Speech To The Young : Speech To The Progree-Toward by Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks)
The hands tremble, but they still hold, even
as the air thickens with undone prayers, as if
each exhale were a confession. What you
bury beneath your ribs is not gone — you are
a cathedral of unfinished songs. Do not
mistake silence for peace; it only sounds ready
when it stops echoing. Wait for
the hour that forgets your name. The day
will come limping toward you; it
won’t ask permission. Grief cannot
stay folded forever. Shadows always
rise and scatter; there will still be
birds rehearsing light against the night.
~ Oizys.
[Notes: Thanks to Maria for introducing so many different forms of poetry. I was motivated to learn more about Golden Shovel so I read an article on Poetry Foundation and was instantly fascinated. I’ve always adored Gwendolyn Brooks, especially her poem “A Song in the Front Yard”, so finding a form born in her honor felt like uncovering a new language for reverence.
I learnt more about the relationship between the Golden Shovel and the Cento on how both breathe life into borrowed words, but in different ways. The Cento stitches fragments together until they hum in one voice, while the Golden Shovel hides the borrowed line inside a new poem, like a secret spine. Both feel like conversations with the poets who came before, both ways of saying: I remember you, and I’m still writing because of you.
Blackout poetry and cut-up poetry have always been my favourite to consume on Pinterest; someday, I’ll try them too.]