NaNoLiPo #1 - 2018-11-30

NaNoLiPo #1 - 2018-11-30

Good morning all. This month I am committing to thirty days of writing within constraints, from prompts at
https://github.com/ojahnn/NaNoLiPo2018 . Today, first day of this month which was ninth to old Romans, our
prompt is to avoid using that fifth glyph from said Romans’ list of glyphs.

Many oulipians start to abhor that fifth glyph, as it is so ubiquitous and oft hard to catch in composition.
It is not actual animosity or horror: not a conviction that a glyph is malign. It is simply an outgrowth of 
constraint, as that which limits us turns into our focus. “Do not think of a big mammal with tusk and trunk”
— what can you do but think of it? In a tribulation of your own mind’s landing on a notion to avoid, you must
acquit your mind: must stay its ally! And thus you will indict that notion that it lands on.

This month I will adopt constraints of many kinds. I will no doubt consult an onomasticon constantly.
Changing my constraint daily will thwart my coming to a habit or vocabulary from a singular prompt:
tomorrow’s limit is syllabic, not glyphic. I’ll probably look for prompts so I’m not just writing about
oulipian writing — and I also want to do translations!

Sappho 105a, without that 5th glyph:

As a crisp fruit grows a blush on its skin on a high branch —
(a jonagold or a cripps pink, a gala or a fuji)
high up, its blush shows its syrupy maturation —
but high on that high branch, all farmhands
(or possibly autumnal-Saturday tourists) forgot it.
Actually: it’s not that anybody could miss its sugary blush.
But nobody could climb so high as to grasp it