Today is the first Friday in May which means it’s time for another Inklings challenge. This month, Linda Mitchell asked us to consider a line borrowed from poet Whitney Hanson, “In poetry we say…”
I took out an old favorite anthology of poems in my classroom, Poetry Speaks to Children, and created a cento poem using lines from other poems. The process was interesting and fun. You may even recognize some of the lines.
Lines from these poets:
Rita Dove
Robert Frost
Gwendolyn Brooks
Carl Sandburg
Lewis Carroll
Maxine Kumin
W. S. Merwin
Jane Yolen
William Shakespeare
J. R. R. Tolkein
Joy Harjo
Langston Hughes
John Ciardi
Nikki Giovanni
Sonia Sanchez
The 2025 Kidlit Progressive Poem is complete! See the poem as a whole along with all the participating poets archived here.
To read how other Inklings approached this challenge:
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Mary Lee @A(nother) Year of Reading
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Catherine @Reading to the Core
I invite you to join me on Instagram for #smallpoems, #poemsofpresence, inspired by Georgia Heard’s calendar.
Reflections on the Teche 
💙 your cento Margaret☺️ especially Sandburg’s “on a flimmering floom you shall ride, and the two lines after!!! And it’s stardust-colors too, thanks!
How fun! We have promises to keep. I like that wiggle and jiggle and words crouching. Thinking about all those colors reminded me that I heard last week about a new color being “discovered.” (Teal that you can only see when a laser is shined in your eye.) I don’t think I want a laser shined in my eye unless they find a color they don’t have words to describe.
This was a great idea, Margaret, and I recognize ALL the lines because I own and have used POETRY SPEAKS TO CHILDREN often! I especially like the first and third stanzas.
Thanks Heidi. I loved your poem and how it speaks to poets about the work we can do (and all the choices) in a poem. I think you should try being a TikTok poet! (My response was blocked on your blog for some mysterious reason. )
Wow, Margaret. I think you did a great job on this cento. It was fun to recognize lines and wrack my brain as to where they were from – I thought Roald Dahl was in there somewhere but was mistaken. I’ve only written this form once. I’ll have to try again. You’ve inspired me! Thanks.
Fabulous cento, Margaret ! *thunderous applause* So fun to see nursery rhymes + Shakespeare + Hughes, et. al. “flimmering floom” is new to me. Love it!
ooooooooh! What a neat and nifty response? How fun to page through poems looking for lines that poetry says to us. I adore this. I think it’s frameable. I want to give this to a young teacher just starting out grappling with the tidal wave of work and need in today’s classrooms. Beautifully done. Thank you.
Great idea, Margaret! Your cento is full of wonderful lines that fit so well together.
Brilliant response to the challenge and BRILLIANT cento!
I love this cento connection to other poets in an ars poetica. 🙂
That first stanza, Margaret–swoon!