Rearranging words . . .

     If we count all possible arrangements of 18 words, the total number of these is 18! (18-factorial) and equal to 6,402,373,705,728,000 -- a collection of word-permutations that would be a burden, rather than a joy, to contemplate.  (This previous posting offers some small lists of permutations for review.)
     Poet Darby Larson boldly experiments in his verse and in a 2009 posting (found months ago at  darbylarson.blogspot.com but no longer there) I found these three stanzas -- three of the more-than-six-quadrillion possible arrangements of a particular list of eighteen words.  

Permutations and Centos

A Cento is a collage poem made of lines taken from other poems -- such as a sonnet composed of lines from fourteen of Millay's sonnets, or Shakespeare's -- or from newspaper articles or television advertisements or whatever. Here's a three-line sample from a Cento, "Patchwork," composed by Joanna Migdal to celebrate women poets.

   I dwell in Possibility.                                              (Emily Dickinson, #657)
   Yes, for that most of all.                                        (Denise Levertov, “The Secret”)
   It’s four in the afternoon. Time still for a poem.   
                                                                        (Phyllis McGinley, “Public Journal”)