Let Me Say This: Cento as Book Review

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You know what I hate about books? I hate that the author / editor / publisher has one year to get the word out, and then if there are no major awards, no movies in the works—poof!—another beautiful work of art falls into the book abyss. I guess that's a complaint about the publishing industry more than it is about books themselves, which I actually love. Mostly love. 
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Well, in any case, I love Let Me Say This: a Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology edited by Julie E. Bloemeke and Dustin Brookshire and published by Madville Publishing, and I want to tell you about it, via cento. Mostly. 

But before you arrive at the cento, which is constructed of lines from some poems in the book, I also want to tell you that you should buy yourself a copy of this anthology because reading it feels like being cozied up on a friend's couch, surrounded by your favorite people, with something warm and sweet in one hand,  telling stories about the Queen of Country and how she changed us, how she changed America. 
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​Also, the proceeds go toward Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, and anyway, Dolly is eternal. ​

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Backwoods Glitter & Gospel

Heaven loans a magpie one single sequin at a time
sunning black snakes
 
lightning bugs to pepper night with living stars
I dream them back in. I dream us beneath them
 
Sun melting a sweet knife-spread of highway
Strawberries taste right again and they’re ripe all year long
 
To dwell on something becomes a dwelling
a small fist in her chest
 
Slow any song and sorrow blooms like blood through a bandage
Her longing was vaster than silence
 
She holds my face and laughs like honey on biscuits
I want more of that abandon, more love, more odes to everyday pleasure
 
Bright bell of laughter
This story ends with applause
 
Every kind of love’s a force that sends you to your knees
singing and singing and singing

​                                                                                                  ~Patricia Caspers

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​Source texts:
The Intimate Biography: Chad Frame
The Great Equalizer: Diamond Forde
Dolly Said “No” to Elvis: Dorianne Laux
The Yassification of Dolly Parton: L.J. Sysko
Dolly’s Debut: Linda Neal Reising
If You Play Jolene at 33 RPM: Phillip Watts Brown
I Hear a Boy Humming “Jolene” While He Practices Long Division: Carolyn Oliver
Dolly Refuses the Nomination: Donna Vorreyer
If This Song Seems Strange It’s Just Because I Don’t Know How to Pray: Arden Levine
These Mountains: Rachel Morgan
Eugene, Oregon / Homesick: Raye Hendrix
Never Did Say So: Caridad Moro-Gronlier
Conversations with Dolly Parton at 3 a.m.: Makayla Gay
Will He Be Waiting for Me: Lynn Melnick
In the Dream, Dolly Offers to Officiate: Julie Marie Wade
Asexual Ode to Dolly Parton: Emma Bolden