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Celebrating Living Poets: A Culminating Cento Featuring A Line from Every Poet This Month ~ May the Circle Be Unbroken

Thank you to all of the organizers and technology friends at Slice of Life who give us this space to blog all during March and weekly throughout the year. So much would be missing without our writing community, and it takes dedication and commitment to continue the work. You are appreciated! A huge thanks to each slicer for teaching me new things all month and sharing in the writing journey. What a gift we have in our fellow writers.

If you ever go to The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, you’ll see a circle in the floor that was cut from the old original Grand Ole Opry when it was at the Ryman Theater down near Broadway and brought to the new Opry when it was built. It looks a lot like a vinyl record album. You can read about its history here. The theme song for years at the Opry, Will The Circle Be Unbroken, is made manifest in that circle where all the greats have stood, reaching into the hearts of their audiences and singing from deep within their souls. All songs, after all, are poems set to music.

You can see the circle in the floor on the stage of The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. Click the link at the bottom of this post for the live video with the song!

My friend and fellow writer Barb Edler at Sitting Behind the Eight Ball planted a seed for how to conclude a month of celebrating living poets the day she wrote a spine poem using the titles of the books in my poetry stack from a picture I shared. Then, the seed idea sprouted in a Cento poem from Lauren Camp’s poetry on March 29. It was as if a poet was urging me to think of the center, the truth, the room and to let the vision be as large as creation.

And so today, to conclude The Slice of Life Challenge 2026, let’s gather around the great circular slice and stand together as we invite all of the Living Poets back for a line in the multi-voiced Cento poem that features each poet throughout the month. I have taken one line of each daily poem and combined them into a collective song – to call the spirits of our poetry ancestors, the poets of today, and the future generations of poets to keep writing. What would a world be without poetry, without song, without voice? I envision each poet stepping up to the microphone to say their line, then returning to their place in the circle.

May the Circle Be Unbroken

When the earth makes a particularly hard turn

I can’t sleep at night

Glazed eyes, I go into a poem

perched on the edge of euphoric plummet

Eyes up, Arms out

Lulled by the rhythm of pewter waves

whatever your name is, you are with your own kind

Listen closely and maybe you’ll realize – it isn’t your voice

allow that it’s supposed to be in bloom right now

beneath each human move

beneath this wing

A poem is a gesture toward home

Inside the case were all the photos

we rouse ghosts

wanting in

what’s left is footage: the hours before

My life is filled with the souls of women

There are parts of you that fade with time

women in rustling skirts, old men with walkers

people on the street

They say to stay strong

I am a fortress

Maybe the poem is a cry for help

A star shoots across the sky

A tricky riddle cleverly solved

for the nonbelievers

Yesterday, you constructed an aqueduct of dreams

Never forget that

let that vision be as large as creation

That that parade of it all might ignite me

Side note: Denise Krebs also wrote a Cento using a line of each of her Stafford Challenge poems from this month so hop over to Dare to Care to read hers as well. She, Barb Edler, and Glenda Funk are the others in a small group that meets once a month to write together. These ladies are not only writing friends, but also real friends I’ve met in person and who may know me better than those who sit feet from me at work every day. Truth.

Here is the poem as it looked when I used Cento sticks to arrange it, and the order of the sticks from the underside that tell the order of each poet who wrote each line in the photo beneath this one.

Here are the poems and poets from which each line was taken throughout the month, in this order that appears above (but not in date order 1-31):

The Song of the House in the House by Joy Hard

I Worry by Wendy Cope

How Nature Calls Me by Glenis Redmond

Midnight, Talking About our Exes by Ada Limon

Undivided Attention by Kate Baer

Back to School by Amy Nemecek

Goldenrod by Maggie Smith

Whose Hate did You Swallow by Victoria Hutchins

Brazen by Marcela Sunak

Showing Up by Naomi Shihab Nye

The Cashier at the Gas Station Asks Where I’m From by Joy Sullivan

Duplex by Jericho Brown

Salvage by Miranda Cowley Heller

Who We Gonna Call by Amanda Gorman

Noche, La Casa Mag de Lena, Lamy, New Mexico by Sandra Cisneros

Providence by Natasha Trethewey

Marriage of Friends by Hannah Rosenberg

Blue by Sophie Diener

Eclogue with Paris and Prayer by Chelsea Rathburn

The Order of the Day by Billy Collins

Stay Strong by David Gate

Virginity by David Elliott

Queries of Unrest by Clint Smith

Before by Brian Rohr

An Address I’ll Forget by Sarah Kay

The Dark Doorway by Lyndsay Rush

First Snow by Arthur Sze

What Not to Say to Your Students at the Juvenile Detention Center by Nicole Stellon O’Donnell

Fear Of by Lauren Camp

Taxi by Misha Collins

Finally, here is a video of the theme song sung during the 100th anniversary celebration. Click the link below the picture and sing along as we bid farewell to the 2026 Slice of Life Challenge and invite it to journey on in our daily lives….and to return in 2027 with more voices in this great circular Slice of Life.

Click Video Link Here: Live Celebration of Will the Circle Be Unbroken

For April, please consider coming to join us for VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com. The party starts tomorrow, and we will be writing a poem daily through the month. If committing to an entire month seems too much right now, perhaps you can come on weekends or a couple of days a week. We’d love to have you join us! As Denise Krebs shared today: I’ll be writing poems each day in April at Ethical ELA’s #Verselove. Maybe you’ll join Kim Johnson, Glenda Funk, Sharon Roy, Margaret Simon, Rita DiCarne, Erica Johnson, Barb Edler, me, and many others. No need to sign up. Just join us here: https://www.ethicalela.com/verselove/

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Celebrating Living Poets: Ada Limon

Ada Limon was our U.S Poet Laureate prior to our current Poet Laureate, Arthur Sze. She writes poems and puts them in a drawer, returning to them later to see which ones seem to have bloomed. She tells writers who are striving to make a living off “just writing” that their poetry wants them to live and work and pay their bills. Limon lives in Lexington, Kentucky and is inspired by nature, and of course by horses, being so close to the Kentucky Derby -and if you’ve never read How to Triumph Like a Girl, you simply must click this link and devour every single line. Ada Limon is one of the two poets our dog Ollie loves best, as his chewing on the corner of Bright Dead Things reveals (I cropped the damage out in the photo below).

I’ve created a Cento poem by using existing lines from two of her collections and arranging them into new poems. The first poem is from lines in poems in The Carrying.

What a Day Is

The big-ass bees are back, tipsy, sun-drunk

The birds were being so bizarre today

that brute sky opening in a slate-metal maw

and the dogs are going bonkers in the early morning

and this is what a day is. Beetle on the wainscoting,

But friends, it’s lunchtime.

Lines for my cento were taken from these poems, in this order: Dandelion Insomnia; Almost Forty; The Leash; The Visitor; Late Summer after a Panic Attack; The Light the Living See

I couldn’t resist TWO poems for today. Need I say that Ada Limon is in my top tier of favorite poets? Maybe even my very favorite. These lines for this cento were taken from Bright Dead Things.

Shower Dragon

I’m crying near the shower

changing swirl of hips and hope

part female, part male, part terrible dragon

But I want to be more like a weed

perched on the edge of euphoric plummet

of psychedelic-colored canaries: a cloud

of air, of water, of fire, of earth

of fast wishes caught by nothing.

Taken from, in this order: Cower, Play it Again, Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds; The Good Fight; Midnight, Talking About our Exes; Adaptation; The Whale and the Waltz Inside of It; The Plunge.

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Celebrating Living Poets: Lauren Camp

Throughout the month of March, I have been celebrating a different living poet each day by taking lines of their existing poetry and rearranging them into new poems called Centos. Today’s living poet is one that I was blessed to hear as part of the Stafford Challenge monthly guest speakers. Lauren Camp was the Grand Canyon’s Astronomer in Residence and a New Mexico Poet Laureate. She read from a couple of her books, including In Old Sky and shared of her theme of darkness and how it is often misperceived.

You can read about Lauren Camp, along with her poetry, here. If I were writing an introduction to my slice I am envisioning for March 31, today’s poem would set the stage.

Voices of the Poets from Center Circle

Many of our people have lived

Nothing is insignificant, but I know the room

Where the center is

is this truth

is, the future

let that vision be as large as creation

Lines for this Cento were taken from these poems, in this order: Diminishing Echo; Reclaiming Perspective; Bluest; Into this Absence; Prognosis; Fear of.

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Celebrating Living Poets: Sarah Kay

The first time I ever heard Sarah Kay perform “Hands,” I was speechless. She was young, polished, and profoundly moving in her delivery. She’s the living poet I’m celebrating today during the Slice of Life Challenge. Each poet’s collection has inspired me to take a selection of their existing lines and rearrange them, creating a Cento poem from their work.

Sarah quickly became a favorite, and one whose YouTube videos I share with my book club when I send out morning poems during National Poetry Month. Imagine my surprise when I learned that she was coming to Serenbe Pavilion in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia this May! Serenbe is an hour from where I live – a Saturday night drive well worth the cost of a reserved seat. I can’t wait to hear her in person – I’m thinking of it as a small pre-retirement gift to myself to ignite the flame of all the poetry events I’ll finally be able to attend, even if they’re on weeknights. For today, I’m thumbing through A Little Daylight Left and indulging in the joy of her writing.

You can read more about Sarah Kay here; this link has her famous Ted Talk “If I Should Have a Daughter” embedded into the article with the interview.

My Cento:

I study the metronome of his breath

I am a snow globe of worry

So maybe this is a Magic Cat

A tricky riddle cleverly solved

We laugh & laugh & laugh

These lines were taken from the following poems, in this order:

An additional thought today:

When I woke up and read a post this morning from Peter at Five Hundred a Day, I realized that I, too, have been fishing for the place my words are looking for (don’t miss his blog post today – it’ll bring a tear or two or a Kleenex full). In 2025, a colleague and I started an office book club. Recently, she has become a Silent Book Club host, and we have both seen our husbands, infrequent readers prior to this additional club, show up and take ownership in “their” book club. It has been a blessing, and as our ladies’ book club meets for our discussions and adventures, our husbands will go have dinner and discussions of their own. I made a mental note: there is something to showing up without expectation to discuss a book that appeals to folks..

I share all of this to say that like Peter, I’ve been fishing for an in-person writing group in my town and nearby smaller towns, and I found the Silent Book Club equivalent in a group called Shut Up & Write (SUAW). Each writing group where I can share with others is so unique, but one type of group I don’t have in my life and desperately need is in-person. I applied and have apparently made the cut, was approved as an organizer, and will complete my onboarding training during Spring Break in a week and a half. I’m casting my reel out to ask if anyone has attended a Shut Up & Write event and to ask for your experiences. I’d love to get your thoughts.

Ollie eats good poetry; hence two of these books appear more loved on.
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Celebrating Living Poets: Arthur Sze

I’m celebrating living poets this month as I write each day during March and share my blog on http://www.twowritingteachers.org during the Slice of Life Challenge. With each living poet’s work, I’m creating a cento by taking their existing lines of poetry from a selected collection and arranging them into a new poem. Arthur Sze is the current US Poet Laureate, and today I’m using his book Sight Lines. You can read more about him here.

Strawberry Breakfast

Yesterday, you constructed an aqueduct of dreams

dozens of tiny flames flickering into darkness

An unglazed pot fired and streaked from ash

Early morning light: a young red-tailed hawk

in cool Alpine air

in daylight, snow has accumulated

crossing the street, you hear the cry of a strawberry finch

the unfolding of a life has junctures

Each line was taken from existing poems in Sight Lines and arranged into an entirely new poem, in this order: First Snow; Spring: Winter Stars; Under a Rising Moon; Dawn Redwood; The Radiant’s; The Glass Constellation; In the Bronx; The Far Norway Maples.

Occasionally, people ask me about my process for writing Cento poems. I tell them about my homemade Cento sticks. As I read collections of poetry, I write lines I like onto large tongue depressors using Sharpie markers. On the back, I write the title of the poem and the poet. Next, I select lines I love and put them in a new order. You can see a video here and here, then see a finished product below. I also frequently mix poets together, but this month, I’m using lines from single collections by living poets. Try writing a cento! You’ll be amazed at how just moving one single line can change everything and put the world on a whole new axis.

Lines for this Cento poem were taken from these poems, in this order:

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Celebrating Living Poets: David Gate

This month during the Slice of Life Challenge at http://www.twowritingteachers.org, I’m celebrating a different living poet each day and using their work to create a cento poem. David Gate is a poet who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Asheville, North Carolina and writes predominantly on themes of nature and the environment. You can read more about David Gate here and here.

When the Baby Goats are Dying

People say “money doesn’t make you happy”

when the baby goats are dying.

It tells you nothing.

They say to “stay strong.”

I always do.

Lines for this Cento were taken from: The Problem of Happiness; I Still Get to Be Yours; Curse these Minutes; Stay Strong; Winter’s Insistence

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Celebrating Living Poets: Billy Collins

If you’ve been following the celebration of living poets I’ve been adding to the circle each day, you just knew all along that this poet was coming to the party. Whenever I need to stop taking life so seriously but still keep the reality in perspective and blend in some humor, I reach for Billy Collins. He’s got me covered when it comes to a balm for the heart on weary days – which is pretty much every day when the pollen count is high and I have spring fever and work in a windowless cubicle. Oh, I have my Billy Collins favorites ~ Whale Day, Banana School, An Irish Spider.…all of them are as unique as his personality and just as engaging. He’s a former US Poet Laureate. In one of his writing videos somewhere in the past, I remember him saying, “Bring in a spider.” The spider is the metaphor for the unexpected zinger in a poem. I see them in his poems, all these spiders, and I strive for them in my own. It’s like that one secret ingredient that makes the poem come alive. You can read more about Billy Collins here on his website.

Worms Speak of a Narcissist

Surely, narcissism fails to capture

people on the street

and what you had been feeding me

just an expanse of white ink

pass through my special glasses, but not you.

Now, I am free of the collar

It’s the science of worms

near a breadcrumb on the curb

and, I swear, they began talking about you.

Lines for this Cento were taken from, in this order: Freud; Height; The Order of the Day; the Peasants’ Revolt; Special Glasses; The Revenant; The Introduction; Height; Carry

31 days of Living Poets in a tribute book stack – STANDING STRONG
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Celebrating Living Poets: Naomi Shihab Nye

Throughout the month of March, I’m celebrating a living poet each day. The living poet I’m reading today is Naomi Shihab Nye, and her collection of poems I’m using is Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners. I’m writing Cento poems, which are lines of existing poetry that are taken and put together to form a new poem, much like making a patchwork quilt.

Naomi Shihab Nye’s line from a poem was featured as last year’s National Poetry Month poet by Poems.org (if you have not requested your free one for this year, request it here before they run out – and you can also download it for a letter-size poster. I was pleasantly surprised that a former student from the school district where I work was the artist for last year’s poster. You can read about the artist Christy Mandin here.

When I read the full poem Gate A-4 by Nye from last year’s poster, my mind went back to the Albuquerque airport – the Sunport, from which we had flown back home to Georgia after driving half of Route 66 in June of 2024. That’s a small airport, and it’s the reason we chose it to fly home. When we do the other part of Route 66, we will fly into Los Angeles and out of Albuquerque, basically having completed Route 66 from both ends to the middle from each direction. In any case, I was seated on the wall opposite the check-in desks, and I could envision the entire scene of the poem playing out. It warmed my heart in all the best ways. I’d been right there. Right in that spot where the action in the poem happened. And I was grateful for the memory of being there to be able to “see” it so clearly. My Cento poem today is rooted in the bad news for the woman in the poem at Gate A-4. My last line is in response to how Naomi herself took the bad news and made it good.

Poets will do that.

You can read more about Naomi Shihab Nye here. As a member of the Stafford Challenge who will attend the first poetry conference in Oregon this June, you can believe that one of the speakers I’m most looking forward to hearing is Naomi Shihab Nye. I hear her appearances are rare, which already has me anticipating what a treasure of a moment this will be.

I use Cento sticks to capture golden lines, then rearrange them into new poems.

Bad News

What can you expect?

News loves to be bad

Poured full of ripe language

beneath each human move

What surprised you lately?

Lines for this cento were taken from these poems: The Tent; Moment of Relief; After Listening to Paul Durcan, Ireland; Showing Up; Where do Poets find Images?

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Celebrating Living Poets: Jericho Brown

He’s famous for inventing his own form of poem called the Duplex, and he’s a professor of writing and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia – a mere hour from where I live just south of where his pen graces his pages each day. I own his book The Tradition, but I couldn’t find it anywhere and am grateful that our public library in my small town had a copy. You must check out Jericho Brown, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet who is as real as poets get on a deeply personal level. I’ve written a cento poem using his existing lines from this collection to form a new poem below.

You can read more about Jericho Brown on his website, and here and here.

Two Words

A poem is a gesture toward home

or the woman for whom it was a gift.

None of our fights ended where they began.

Long ago, we used two words.

Lines taken from, in this order: Duplex; After Avery R. Young; Duplex: Cento; The Legend of Big and Fine.

A sneak peek of poets for days 20-31

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Celebrating Living Poets: Amanda Gorman

I was transfixed on the smiling poet delivering her poem with grace and poise at the Biden inauguration. Wearing a yellow coat, with red, she beamed and took the podium. When she spoke, I was speechless, mesmerized. Her name is Amanda Gorman, and her poetry is healing. Our nation needs a spoonful – perhaps a bottle full – of Amanda Gorman right now. You can read more about Amanda Gorman here and here. I’ve composed a Cento poem using Gorman’s lines from various poems, listed beneath the poem. Her words: Pay Attention. Learn from them. are words I will carry into the day.

We Rouse Ghosts

Even as we stand stone-still

we rouse ghosts ~

A grandma on a porch fingers her rosaries.

This truth, like the white-blown sky.

What endures isn’t always what escapes.

Pay attention.

Learn from them.

Taken from: The Shallows; Who We Gonna Call; The Miracle of Morning; & So; Cordage, or Atonement; Hephaestus; In the Deep