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The lovemaking of languages

Five countries, 20 languages - 51 poets. Goethe Institut's celebration of poetic translations isn't your regular literary jamboree

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Gangtok encounter of the festival
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Poetry, amongst the other enigmatic things that it connotes, stands for the power of expression. At the Goethe Institut / Max Muller Bhavan's poetry festival, 'Poets Translating Poets', 51 poets from five countries, writing in different 20 languages, are set to convert their individual expressions of art, society, culture and politics into one exquisite communal exchange. The festival, that began on November 25, is the culminating event of a two-year-long translation project between poets from South-Asian countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Srilanka, and their counterparts in Germany.

So far, this arduous interaction of languages have given birth to a two-volume book published in Germany, featuring 280 poetic translations. Scheduled to go on till November 27, the festival, flung across multiple locations in the city including NCPA, Max Muller Bhavan and the CSMVS, combines poetry reading sessions and panel discussions centered around the topics of resistance, marginalisation, children and popular culture - laying bare the diverse intellectual processes of artistic comrades who have briefly encountered each other, in smaller constellations, at precursory events for the same project. 

Shahnaz Munni, participating poet from Bangladesh, explains the relevance of such a festival when she says, "When translating, I have only the original poetry in front of me. Here, I have the poetry and the poet. Here, my German counter-part can ask me what I mean when I make a distinction between autumn and late-autumn!"

German poet Christian Fillips, for his part, places faith in the power of translation, even as he says, "The translated poem will not have the same intensity—it will have acquired acquire a new intensity". According to Fillips, even if the reader of the translated work does not fully understand the context, s/he can rely on the assigned structure—deriving the same gestural quality of music that we don't understand, but are moved to appreciate. Music makes for a topical reference, as the festival also traces some common vignettes shared by poetry and music, focusing on the genres of jazz and electronica.

Dr. Martin Wälde, Director of Goethe Institut, braids up the tail-ends of these multifaceted discussions as he wonders, "How can we preserve the diversity of culture and languages, when wars impose a singular identity? How can translation be enhanced among regional languages on diverse linguistic continents such as South Asia and Europe?"

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