Tuesday morning, Dec. 8, I took part in a Pen to Paper Live! creative program offered by the Charlotte Center for Literary Arts, commonly known as Charlotte Lit.
The free weekly sessions offer a mini-lesson and and present a writing prompt. Though I have been a member of Charlotte Lit and its Author’s Lab for the past year, this was the first opportunity I had to participate in one of the writing-in-community sessions, which are usually held in person but were moved online with the pandemic and social distancing restrictions. This one was attended by 14 other writers.
I thoroughly enjoyed the hour-long meet-up and would highly recommend it for those creative sorts who are currently uninspired or stuck. Preregistration is required. For this non-coffee-drinking guy who can sleepwalk through the hours before noon, Pen to Paper Live! gave me a spark and led to me writing this blog and continuing work on my novel.
This week’s session was on Cento. Kathie Collins, executive director and one of the founders of Charlotte Lit, led Tuesday’s session and came up with the writing prompt from a recent article in the New York Times. You can read the article to learn more, but basically Cento is a sort of “collage poem” crafted from lines, words, phrases from other sources and then patching together those lines to create a poem.
It’s a way of allowing you to express some subconscious needs through someone else’s work, Collins said. “Consider it another tool for your toolbox,” she said.
I am far from a poet, as the following selection will absolutely prove, but I did find it a fun, creative exercise. For my assignment, I chose to pull from the writings of author Hank Burdine and his story collection “Dust in the Road: Recollections of a Delta Boy.” The story “The ‘Britchesless’ Bachelor” is one of my favorites, especially hearing Hank read it in person with his Delta drawl and his deep baritone acquired via healthy amounts of good whiskey.
Below is my first attempt at Cento. Let’s call it:
Jelly and Whiskey in the Delta
White-coated valets and 15 blue-haired little ladies
Gather for sundry debutante parties in Beulah in the Delta
Me, a member of the Bachelor’s Club, a pool for the Delta Debs
Made haste to Dossett Plantation in my black two-door Pontiac Grand Prix
I arrived in a hand-me-down tuxedo with cummerbund
Yet, about to pass out because my britches were too tight
My date, Blanche Shackleford, fled to the slough unencumbered
As the Budweiser had filled her holding tank, quite a site.
Meanwhile, my unhitched pants fell to my knees
And I’d forgotten to put my car in park
Blanche emerged from the slough and the trees,
And so, Blanche gave chase, shaking and boogying
So fierce, her left bosom shimmied out of her dress
And there it remained, quivering like jelly.
“Blanche, my Gawd” the little ladies shouted
Upon which, she tucked it right back into the top of her gown
And I, on a quest to drink good whiskey
found Mr. Dixon Dossett where we told tall tales in his gunroom until dawn.
Compiled from “The Britchesless Batchelor.” A story from “Dust in the Road: Recollections of a Delta Boy” by Mississippi author Hank Burdine.
Michael Banks 360 