I had the good fortune last night to be at the Marfa Book Co for a reading by poet Michael Morse, which was prescient as today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a “review poem.”
Instead, of writing a review of the reading (which was terrific) or Morse’s new book Void and Compensation (Don’t you just want to read the book for its title?), I decided to assemble a modified cento poem—a poem composed entirely of the words of other authors arranged in a new form or way.
For me, Morse’s lovingly haunting lines stand as their own review.
Void and Compensation*
—After Michael Morse
So you are related to the iris, in and of its family.
April, the meadowlark back on his post,
I led wayward bees to open windows.
We had put our hearts down on paper.
Since when did keeping things to ourselves
help us to better remember them?
*All lines are from Void and Compensation by Michael Morse, Canarium Books, 2015.
Alice-Catherine 