Levertov Cento #2: Conversation between Denise and Me (Mini-Challenge)

Day 2 of the Mini Challenge from ReadWritePoem.

I collected these poems from a collection titled Claiming the Spirit Within, A Sourcebook of Women’s Poetry edited by Marilyn Sewell.

 

It is among my favorite poetry collections and is the place I first “met” Denise Levertov.

 

I realized as I wrote this Cento it became a love-verse, a conversation – between the two of us. Makes me laugh. It became a poem-conversation with the poet.

 

It was weird: I only recognized this as I wove the lines together so this attempt at falling in love with a poet seems to be the poet reaching out, in love, to me.

 

Pretty cool, actually.

 

These are the poems I used:

 

“Variations on a Theme by Rilke”

“For Whom the Gods Love Less”

“In Memory: After a Friend’s Sudden Death”

 

Levertov Cento #2: Conversation between Denise and Me

 

Understanding. Each life in art -

Entering slowly, completely into the welcoming whirlpool

When you discover

 

Radiant epiphanies recur, recur

Some inflection of light, some wing of shadow

A certain day became a presence to me

 

Your new work travels ground you have traversed

in cyclic rhythm: “Know and forget, know and forget.”

Is other, unvoiced, you can, you must

 

Other’s will speak of your spirit’s tendrils reaching

forth to meet dragons that rise from their bloody scales

And what I heard was my whole self

 

A 15^th century widehipped grace

Rang out, metallic – or was I, a bell awakened

To heedfully walk and sing through dailiness

 

Saying and singing what it knew:

I can

Young, vestal though nearing fifty….

 

 

Comments

[DJ Vorreyer]

This worked really well - almost an ars poetica.

[Linda Jacobs]

Ooooh, I'm liking this one so much! The lines blend so well and lead believably to the conclusion.

[irene]

Her lines are intensely beautiful and you've put it together so well. I found her not an easy poet to read but she rewards your patience so well.

[carolee]

i'm in love with the idea of the cento as a dialog with the poet. a love affair. :)

[pamela]

Wow that is really beautiful! What lovely poem.

Pamela

[pamela]

what a lovely poem I meant!

[Nicole Nicholson]

I really like this. I'm also dialoguing with another poet, but in a different way, for a project I've been working on for the last few months. Except I'm imagining, and then writing, his half of the conversation.

This was well done. I think that these lines are my favorite:

"Other’s will speak of your spirit’s tendrils reaching/forth to meet dragons that rise from their bloody scales/And what I heard was my whole self"

because this rings true for me when I write.

-Nicole