Oulipost 1: Quote Cento: the old rule book

the old rule book

the man went crazy and said, “…too heavily;

food is clearly part of the reason. Hold
the line” like something out of a horror
movie
               and she did what she had to do:
another method of revenue, a strong
sense of belonging, trust; many years away.




Sources (All from page B2 of today's Houston Chronicle)
Fechter, Joshua. "Comptroller's Race Targets Taxes." Houston Chronicle 1 Apr. 2014: B2.
O'Connor, Kyrie. "In Good Health? You Likely Have Insurance." Houston Chronicle 1 Apr. 2014: B2.
Rogers, Brian. "Scene Where UH Prof Died a 'Horror Movie'." Houston Chronicle 1 Apr. 2014: B2.


Note:
This is my first of a month of found poetry. This is a cento made of quotes from a couple of newspaper articles. In general, I am trying to avoid having the poem reflect the content of the articles in terms of theme; I generally managed that, although this one is also about relationship. It has a little bit of a narrative line through it. The title, like all of the poem, comes from the articles, and quotes within the articles.


Here is the prompt I was responding to:


When composing a cento, poets take lines from existing poems (traditionally without any alterations) and patch them together to form a new poem. Today, create a cento using only quotes referenced in newspaper articles. For example, if a newspaper article contained the line “It was a tragedy,” commented Detective Smith, the line, “It was a tragedy,” would be available for you to use in your poem. While you can’t change anything within the quotes themselves, you may choose to break a longer quote in half or use just part of a quote as needed.