read write prompt #110, no, not literally –
(trans)literally by Dana Guthrie Martin
Transliteration is the process of selecting a text in a language you don’t know and then doing a faux translation of the work based on what you think the words mean. The key is not knowing the language you are translating from so that your faux translation won’t be sullied by knowing what the words actually mean.
(Read the RWP prompt for full details.)
(Read other participants responses to this prompt.)
Tempest words
Say it once.
My ocean open arms, tempest
skips like a stone over bare crests,
lays pacific.
Shudders amber breath, ocher soil,
as roots swell under buried far sight.
Fertile as children are.
Say it twice.
Bare necessity respoken, does,
proceeds broken. Suckles poems
finding path between open words.
Leave, my trust my will.
Your good sense, much unties.
Neil Reid © January 2010
Transliteration process notes:
After several unsatisfying initial attempts, I went this way – taking one of my own old poems (Storm), translated it to Portuguese, proceeded from there to resolve new words from that.
This was not an easy prompt, to my surprise. Is there a layer beneath my own abstractions of language? How willing am I not to lead, but follow their own relationships? I’ll take this as an exercise, a practice write to shake loose of my own meanings alone. Not easy. Maybe something better will grow from this down the line. So be it.
bearly audible 
I had much difficulty with this prompt, too. I guess if I could have taken it as a practice only, I’d have been able to accept my results.
Some of this makes a strange kind of sense and, as you state, may contain the kernel of a poem.
Nice to meet you, by the way!
Hi Karen. Nice of you to visit. I think you (we) can take everything we do as “practice”. Vanity or something kin does like to put its 25 cents worth in however! 🙂 Not to get serious – which is the hook!
Thanks Karen.
I enjoyed this. Particularly, the first stanza where pacific takes on a playing form.
Me too. (I think) Thank you.
Neil, the way this poem evokes the tumult of desire through its images of ocean, earth, breath and body is lovely to me. I think you did a wonderful job with the most difficult permutation of that prompt–working with a poem of your own translated into another language. Beautiful work.
Well I picked the poem I did because it’s short, then thanks to my memory, didn’t really retain the original words while I worked (as we were asked). But, my opinion, there was still too much of my language wanting to shape things out again in a more familiar way. That was hard to stop.
But I’m glad if you liked the images. Thank you Madeline.
Nice one Neil….I had trouble with transLITERATION too…anyways I like what u did….”Pacific” sure has been opening up down S Calif way…cheers
Thanks Wayne! Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you.
(And where I am, in the middle of things, flood just means really big big puddles for the most.)
Hi, Neil. I like the phrase “fertile as children are”. That and “finding path between open words” make the exercise worth the effort.
No way could I have used one of my own pieces for this exercise, not without putting it through the garbage disposal first.
You’ve better memory than me! I did purposely choose one somewhat older. I remembered the topic but not the words and just kept attention to what was in front of me.
My problem was more about wanting to make some sense of the words as they directly seemed. That turned out to be the lesson for me. (Suppose I hold my words pretty close, although my self image says otherwise. But we all like to fib a bit I think.) Thanks Barbara.
Being able to follow their own relationships — a great question. You’ve done good work here.
Thanks Nathan. Kind you are.