NaPoWriMo 9, appropriately square

The prompt is utterly unlike how I always have written. It's fantastic and exactly why I signed myself up for the NaPoWriMo Challenge.

Swimming differs from floating.
While a phantasm is floating, the octopus swims away.
Swimming strums the water. Floating
gets wattled by the moon's whims, a seaweed marionette.
Swimming jams past what jugs the floating.
The silvery school of prey flap and flash and startle by
swimming. Pumice, bad eggs are floating.

Being differs from yearning.
Bruises mend while saudade is lurking like that tome
being unfinished. That recrement, yearning,
closes no distance and salves nothing itself. My steps,
being crickets, sing their yearning
nightly for both more and less than what I am now,
being on the fringe and yearning.

I'm not terribly happy with my result. I'm ok with the first half, but the latter falls flat to me. I wrote myself into a corner. Breaking the concrete could help. I keep returning to Nathan Moore and Dana Guthrie Martin's happy accident of transliterating the same piece. Putting those side-by-side on a large screen is inspiring. I think I need to try transliterating to loosen my imagery.

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Do it. It’s super fun. Everything we want to say can be read in tea leaves — only the leaves are other words. I believe this as much as I believe anything.

Comment by Dana — Sat 10 Apr 2010 02:10:02 AM PDT

I like what you did here, by the way.

Comment by Dana — Sat 10 Apr 2010 02:11:22 AM PDT

Transliteration is such fun and does force you to be looser with imagery.There is a transliterative flavour about your poem as if you have already transliterated it from another language.Don’t know how one can do that but I think you inadvertently might have! I hope we get one as a prompt.

Comment by rallentanda — Sat 10 Apr 2010 02:34:22 AM PDT

I like what you did here. If you think transliterating would be of help I say go for it. We did that as a prompt on RWP a while back and it was excellent! Pamela

Comment by wordsbypsayers — Sat 10 Apr 2010 02:35:36 AM PDT

I am amazed at how many people were able to pull off this prompt. Well done.

Comment by Evelyn N. Alfred — Sat 10 Apr 2010 02:43:07 AM PDT

love how the first line sets the pace.. felt as if i was right along with you… yes, i too agree with your comments… curtain call

Comment by pieceofpie — Sat 10 Apr 2010 03:10:01 AM PDT

Hey! I really like “being differs from yearning” — wise words.

Comment by nathan — Sat 10 Apr 2010 01:42:48 PM PDT

I’m happier with it today. Thank you all! The second stanza threw me for a loop. The first stanza came from “pumice” and the bad taste, eggs. I realized they both can float… It’s really incredible to me how the prompt pulled those together. That’s also my normal method, though. I latch onto an image. The image may fade away, but it sets a direction. Targeting transliteration, but not this weekend.

Comment by Jason Riedy — Sat 10 Apr 2010 09:34:59 PM PDT

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