Cento: Lines from Mandelstam<\/p>\n
Where to start?
\nNo one word’s better than another;
\nHere, taking form, is the first draft.<\/p>\n
The air trembles with similes,
\nAnd sometimes the air is dark as water.
\nYou can’t get out of it, and it’s hard to get in.<\/p>\n
The breast of the sea breathes tranquilly,
\nAnd all the seas of the world lie open,
\nbut it’s a hard sail, and the same stars everywhere.<\/p>\n
Time gnaws at me like a coin,
\nStirs itself from long sleep on the harsh avenues,
\nHangs above the damned abyss.<\/p>\n
Never mind if our candles go out.
\nAhead of us we’ve only somebody’s word,
\nAnd there’s not even enough of me left for myself.<\/p>\n
I have forgotten the word I wanted to say.
\nEverything’s happened before and will happen again.
\nWhat I’m saying now isn’t said by me.<\/p>\n
I have studied the science of good-byes.
\nWho can tell from the sound of the word ‘parting’?
\nMemory, are those your voices?<\/p>\n
\u2013 Bill Stifler<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A cento is a patchwork collage of lines taken from other works. All of the lines from this poem are taken from translations of various poems by Osip Mandelstam from a 1987 world poetry text compiled by Richard Jackson for ENGL433 at UT Chattanooga. I wrote the poem while taking the class and recently edited it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cento: Lines from Mandelstam Where to start? No one word’s better than another; Here, taking form, is the first draft. The air trembles with similes, And sometimes the air is dark as water. You can’t get out of it, and it’s hard to get in. The breast of the sea breathes tranquilly, And all the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[87,86,21],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-2","tag-osip-mandelstam","tag-poem","tag-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tPlD-5L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":384,"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions\/384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billstifler.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}