Each day of March during the Slice of Life Challenge, I’m celebrating living poets by using their work to create new poems from existing lines. How fitting that today’s poet wrote The Orange – – just like a slicing logo! Her name is Wendy Cope, and she is from Great Britain. Her title poem was born from a simple moment with friends and has become a world favorite. In her story below, which describes how she came to write the poem, it reminds me of Frank O’Hara’s famous lunch poems. She is the UK female parallel to his New York City male perspective of capturing the simple moments.
Wendy Cope shares here about how she came to write The Orange, and also here.
In Orbit
We looked up at the stars
both in a spin with nowhere to spin to
I can’t sleep at night.
I can’t forgive you.
I want to do it anyway
But it could take a while.
Taken from: Song; 9-Line Triolet; I Worry; Defining the Problem; Seeing You; Men Talking.
Common Threads 
Your SLices this March as such a treat! You are introducing me to many new poets and poetry books. Then you treat me with your poem!! As a summertime treat, I plan to reread your March entries and really spend time with your favorite poets! And try writing some Cento poems! Please keep them coming!! Love this!
BTW – Clint would be the perfect poet to meet! Not sure if my Slice captured just how great he is. It really was such a special treat to host him!!
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Kim,
I feel as though there is a powerful story behind each line in your cento, especially after seeing the titles, especially after reading the title “Men Talking,” which I want to rewrite as “Men Shouldn’t Be Talking” because when I saw that orange on the cover of the collection, I saw a cartoonish version of Orangey, but then I remembered Gary Soto’s poem “Oranges,” which I loved teaching, and which became a mentor text for student poems. Now I need to read more of Cope’s poems and hope I don’t want to buy the book. Please let the rest of the month’s centos be from collections I own! 🙏
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