Venturing into the World of Poetry

I want this e-portfolio to serve as a space for me to share all sorts of writing, and that includes poetry.  This is a poem I wrote a couple summers ago of which I am extremely proud.  The idea was sparked in my head after watching a series of videos online called “Everything Is a Mashup” in which I was introduced to the concept of a cento.  A cento is a type of poem which is comprised of lines or phrases from other poets’ works.  I thought that sounded like a fun and interesting challenge, but I wanted to have my own twist on it.  What I ended up with was the following poem, in which each line of the poem is an unedited quote from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident

that mankind are more disposed to suffer

when a long train of abuses and usurpations

are absolved from all allegiance to

the United States of America,

protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders,

in the name, and by the authority of,

“necessary for the public good.”

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