Chris Bissette

Dungeon Cento

I recently read Alia Kobuszco's Dream Latitudes. While much of it left me cold - not a criticism of the book, just a fact of how I often struggle to connect with poetry - a couple of pieces had a big impact on me. I liked the final poem cycle 'Snow On The Dead' quite a lot, and in particular enjoyed 'Snow On The Dead (v)', the final piece in the book.

'Snow on the Dead (v)' is a cento, a poem constructed using lines from other poems by different poets (all helpfully cited in the appendix of the book). This was my first exposure to the concept of a cento and I'm immediately in love with the idea.

A project I've had in mind for a long time is a sort of exploration of a fantasy dungeon from the perspective of the dungeon or the inhabitants of the dungeon, with each chapter moving from room to room. Last time I toyed with this idea I was drawing inspiration from Georges Perec's *Life A User's Manual, freezing the dungeon in time and having each chapter be a snapshot of what's happening at that specific moment as a group of intruders make their way through the complex. I haven't touched that for a while, because it's a very hard thing to write and I couldn't make it work.

The concept of centos has ignited the desire to work on this again, but now I'm picturing it as a poem cycle built out of lines from old adventure modules and sourcebooks. There's something really enthralling to me about the challenge of taking what is objectively some of the driest, most blandly functional prose ever written and trying to elevate it into poetry.

Here, then, is my first attempt at a cento for this project.

No lights-
The floor is littered with beams, plaster, ash.
The western pile of rubble
will open one eye, and then another and another,
deep beneath the ground
the water
the chamber
awaits its victims.

Still very much a work in progress, but I think this project might have legs.

Sources:

#blog #poetry