Introductions (A Cento)

Posted 07-31-2005 at PFFA.

Introductions (A Cento)

Listen great things: Brutus and Cassius
You Also, Gaius Valerius Catullus
Jacopo Rusticucci, Arrigo, and Mosca,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
For to-day we have naming of parts.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the
heart.
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Naming your pounding name again in the dark heart-root.
Who gave you the name of Old Glory? - say, who -
Seaver, Garvey, Schmidt, and Vida Blue
And Peter Mangiador, and Peter of Spain,
maggie and millie and molly and may
The ghost of Pancho Villa, Sittin' Bull and Jesse James
All of them sensible everyday names.

So I said I am Ezra
Louie Louie Louie Lou I
The man who married Magdalene
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Shirley, Shirley Bo Birley Bonana Fanna Fo Firley
My Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?

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Um, not great, but slightly amusing.

All poetic credit due:

1. Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare)
2. (Archibald Macleish)
3. Inferno, Canto VI (Dante)
4. Henry V (William Shakespeare)
5. Naming of Parts (Henry Reed)
6. The Names (Billy
Collins)
7. (Emily Dickinson)
8. A Letter (Anthony Hecht)
9. The Name of Old Glory (James Whitcomb Riley)
10. Talkin' Baseball (Terry Cashman)
11. Paradiso, Canto XII (Dante)
12. (E.E. Cummings)
13. Legacy of the Rodeo Man (Baxter Black)
14. The Naming of Cats (T.S. Eliot)

15. (A.R. Ammons)
16. Brother Louie (Stories)
17. (Louis Simpson)
18. (Shel Silverstein)
19. The Name Game (Shirley Ellis)
20. Richard III (William Shakespeare)