Not Too Late: Epigraphic Echoes in Cento
A Cento after the Epigraphs in the Climate Anthology "Not Too Late"
I’ve been returning to reread passages of the PHENOMENAL climate collection, Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua, for the many climate leaders’ insights and frameworks included. One stand-out feature of the book is how the editors included not just a collective of climate leader voices in essays, but also a collection of the most inspired quotes on cultivating hope in crisis.
They’re the kinds of quotes you have taped on a sticky note or in the margins that you want to hold onto, they did such a fantastic job curating diverse and powerful perspectives. Instead of sharing these quotes all as-is, I’ll encourage you to read the full collection— get it from your local library or bookstore. Instead, I worked these into a form of erasure poetry. To preserve as much original meaning as possible, I wanted to use these quotes as gemstones in a mosaic, and restack to resonate with the POWERFUL message of the book. I chose the Cento poetic form to best do this:
The “Cento” Poetic Form, defined: From the Latin word for “patchwork,” the cento (or collage poem) is a poetic form composed entirely of lines from poems by other poets [or texts].
Centos, mosaics, collages, anthologies— to me, these are the highest forms of art, forms that allow multiple collective of voices of heroes to play their parts. Technically, you could chunk anything out into small bits and see a collage in it all. If we are to use this world to create the next, Centos, even when considered as a kind of Erasure poem, are giving Upcyling. Repurpose. Speaking through time and generations. OK, I’ll stop pontificating here and simply let you read.
Not Too Late: Epigraphic Echoes in Cento
After Howard Zinn, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Bayo Akomolafe, Ocean Vuong, James Baldwin, David Graeber, Donella Meadows, Thich Nhat Hanh, Jia Tolentino, Tarana Burke, Mike Davis, plus Rebecca Solnit & Thelma Young Lutunatabua for curating the quotes and editing the collection.
As this century draws to a close, a century packed with history There is too much bad news to justify complacency We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable You are not obligated to complete the work Not everything that is faced can be changed This seems an age of catastrophe It is not easy to be hopeful all the time When you fall apart We don't have to wait for anything at all May we let the sadness come and teach us how to live I try to expect nothing and hope that everything is possible There's a story that begins here, or maybe it ends The ultimate, hidden truth of the world, is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings There is too much good news to justify despair But nothing can be changed until it is faced Utopia is available to us What we have to do is start Don't forget to love the pieces But neither are you free to abandon it I want the courage to need very little and demand a lot What leaps out from that history is its utter unpredictability This may be the most important thing we can do for the survival of the Earth Let us sit with it and let it pass through us so that it might be transformed to something like love.
Here’s a full review of the book I wrote earlier this year:
If you’re interested in more books on climate hope, I gotchu:
I’m sure I’ll only read and review more so subscribe if you want:
What stellar passages on climate or systemic justice are you coming across? What quotables get stuck in your craw? Feel free to share!