Poetic Itch: The Cento or The Beauty of a Poetic Patchwork

The great poet T.S. Eliot once remarked, or confessed perhaps, that “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal,” which might go some way towards explaining the poet’s device: the cento. Coined from the Latin word for ‘cloak’ it goes some way to revealing its nature as a poetic term for poems constructed out of other (pre-exisiting)…