The Poems That Mary Built:
A Line Source List for Mary Dalton's Three Centos

A cento, as Mary Dalton interprets the form, is a poem composed of lines drawn from the work of other poets. What follows is a source list for each of her three poems that appear in The Malahat Review’s “Essential East Coast Writing” issue, #180, Autumn 2012.

"Invitation Cards"

A hooking together of the second lines from the following poems

1. Leonard Cohen, “The Music Crept By Us”
2. Anne Wilkinson, “TV Hockey”
3. P. K. Page, “Cry Ararat!”
4. Denise Levertov, “An Interim”

5. Philip Larkin, “Faith Healing”
6. A.M. Klein, “Political Meeting”
7. Marianne Moore, “In Distrust of Merits”
8. Elizabeth Bishop, “Santarém”

9. Philip Larkin, “Wants”
10. Irving Layton, “Whatever Else Poetry is Freedom”
11. Theodore Roethke, “The Far Field”
12. Gary Snyder, “Kai, Today”

13. W. W. E. Ross, “The Old Song”
14. W. C. Williams, “Tract”
15. D. H. Lawrence, “The Argonauts”
16. Elizabeth Bishop, “Arrival at Santos”

17. Gary Snyder, “Falling from a Height, Holding Hands”
18. Phyllis Webb, from Water and Light: Ghazals and Anti-Ghazals
19. Phyllis Webb, “Prison Report”
20. Margaret Avison, “Rising Dust”

21. Anonymous, “Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye
22. W. H. Auden, “Law Like Love”
23. William Stratford, “At the Bomb Testing Site”
24. Eve Langley, “Native Born”

"Netted"

 A hooking together of the third lines from the following poems

1. John Haines, “The American Dream”
2. Rita Dove, “Against Flight”
3. E. J. Pratt, “Erosion”

4. Galway Kinnell, “Why Regret?”
5. Michael Longley, “The Butchers”
6. Suzanne Buffam, “On Clear Nights”

7. Medbh McGuckian, “River of January”
8. Al Pittman, “Living Alone”
9. Christopher Merrill, “The Lake”

10. Stephen Berg, “Page 119"
11. Suzanne Buffam, “On Possibility”
12. Suzanne Buffam, “On Necessity”

13. Andreas Schroeder, “File of Uncertainties No. 14”
14. John Tranter, “Gypsies”
15. Melanie Rehak, “The Modernist Impulse”

16. Yusef Komunyakaa, “The Panorama”
17. R. A. D. Ford, “Ubiety”
18. Eli Mandel, “Agatha Christie”

19. Philip Levine, “A Boy’s Answer”
20. C. K. Williams, “Not Soul”
21. Garrett Hongo, “Mi Vida: The Embrace”

22. Michael Donaghy, “The Pallace of Memoria Garnished with Perpetuall Shininge Glorious Lights Innumerable”
23. Robert Hass, “Spring Rain”
24. John Terpstra, “Stranger the Story”

25. Suzanne Buffam, “Ideal World”
26. Robin Robertson, “An Ambush”
27. Edward Hirsch, “On the Anniversary of Joseph Brodsky’s Death”

28. John Daniel, “The Canyon”
29. Leslie Vryenhoek, “The Sum of Come From Aways”
30. Suzanne Buffam, “On Dining in Paris”

"Appliqué"

A hooking together of the first lines from the following poems

1. Adrienne Rich, "Diving into the Wreck"
2. Lucille Clifton, "move"
3. Emily Dickinson, [As imperceptibly as grief]
4. Weldon Kees, "After the Trial"

5. Jane Cooper, "After the Bomb Tests"
6. Jacqueline Osherow, "Villanelle for the Middle of the Night"
7. Jeramy Dodds, "Pin-up"
8. Lisa Robertson, "After Trees"

9. Douglas Case, "The Elegy for New York"
10. Carol Muske, "Epith"
11. Muriel Rukeyser, "Yes"
12. Les Murray, "Winter Winds"

13. Carolyn Kizer, "Parents' Pantoum"
14. Wallace Stevens, “A Postcard from the Volcano”
15. Jeramy Dodds, “The Official Translation of Ho Chi Minh’s August 18, 1966, Telephone Call”
16. Charles Tomlinson, “Through Binoculars”

17. Charles Tomlinson, “Paring the Apple”
18. Lisa Robertson, “Draft of a Voice-Over Split-Screen Video Loop”
19. Maximilian Slump, “The Dark Angel”
20. Henri Cole, “The Roman Baths at Nîmes”

21. Marianne Moore, “The Swan and the Cook”
22. Marianne Moore, “Silence”
23. George Gascoigne, [And If I Did, What Then?]
24. Jorie Graham, “Reading Plato”