Culture of a country constructs the heart of its language. Its past, present and future with all its hue and cry become unified at the navel of time and the history of the country carries it. Poet bows at the third footprint derived from the navel and breaks the myth of time into particles to mix with hir poems. The perception of a poet blossoms from the sparkling light of hir consciousness, generated from the tradition of language, detection of its roots, hir own surrounding atmosphere and continuous learning. Poet’s perception doesn’t obey any borders. This perception is different for each poet, yet sitting inside the mystery of this broken geography, poet always feels somebody touches hir soul like the wind of spring, somebody calls hir heart with the wink of eyes. Insanity of a poet keeps its steps in this inevitable inequality to break the fences of countries, to cross the boundaries of cultures, to uncover the myths of languages. Just from this point of juncture our translation literature starts its journey.
Since the aesthetic meaning and context are different across different languages, translation of a poem needs not only to translate literal meaning but also to account for social context and cultural references of the source language. When a poem is translated from its source language to the target one, both languages move to a third place to create a new poem. The ground of this innovation in poem with its fundamental poetic assumption is not similar across the different traditions of the countries. Yet the controversy between loyalty and liberty continuously oscillates on translator’s fingers. Does the loyalty mean lexical translation to create a word-for-word meaning? Does the loyalty mean literal imitation of the source language? Metaphrase or paraphrase, static or dynamic equivalence – which one can open the veil of poetry’s beauty?
Now the bearer and carrier of a language is its word, but the word is just a symbol of a sound. Word does not have any specific meaning; it’s only a signifier to establish a relationship between sign and signified, between possibility and possible. Word is a symbol of an object, but object is not the symbol of anything. And these words create the language.
In the beginning, the origin of a word was sound. Gradually different languages of the world and its various dialects, marinated with the light of their different religions and cultures, its vernacular and particularities, its different social context same objects, same thoughts and same instances were expressed with varying sounds. As a result, our sounds transformed to symbols, but we received an alternative sound, an alternative word for the same object across the boundaries of countries and time. Objects and verbs are symbolic words, which we can refer to, yet it is meaningless. But an abstract word is not a symbol, which we cannot refer to, yet it is meaningful. Here the question of translator’s liberty raises its finger. In order to find the originality of hir own expression, poet inclines towards the word which is emotive, towards the language which triggers hir emotion by touching hir senses, and it becomes meaningful in the space of hir consciousness. Yet the linguistic science calls it unscientific! Today’s science becomes outdated by the knowledge of the tomorrows. So the new path finding poet doesn’t waver by unscientific title.
There is no universalism in poetic expression across the different languages. The same word or content or gesture is understood culturally different ways. There is a possibility that when an international object is implanted in a poem, its meaning becomes national, which may be opposite meaning in its local tradition. Our project is the transcreation of American poems into Bengali, an Indian language. Our traditional, cultural and social atmosphere are very different than American. So during translation I felt the importance of dialogue between the poet and translator. I am fortunate enough to have the opportunities to exchange thoughts during translation process with various poets of our transcreation project. Please allow me to reveal here some of my experiences of exchanging thoughts with these poets.
Charles Bernstein is an American poet whose poetics fascinated me so much that I started translating from his new book Pitch of Poetry before I could start translation of his poems for our project from his another book, Recalculating. ‘Curve continuously’ is the essence of his poems and poetics. He believes that every poem is a model of a possible world where we resonate with active reading. Instead of any conventional poeticism he believes in his own poetics, what he named as “pataquericalism, a syncretic term suggesting weirdness, wildness, precarious querulousness by combining inquiry with pataphysics, French protomordernist Alfred Jarry’s “science” of exception, imaginary solutions, and swerves”, as Bernstein defines it. So we can say that as Metaphysic is “science” of abstraction, Pataphysics is “science” of exception, when added with any word to mean exception, to mean against convention, which may have imaginary solutions. I moved by his thought “postmodernism: modernism with a deep sense of guilty”. During our long session of conversation with translation of his poems, I could realize that the cultural divergence between India and America needs to be incorporated during translation. As he mentioned, “the indivisible union of America with its cultural agonism, African-American dialect, colloquial and cultural specific references, immigrant second language” is something not shared by Bengali poetics. Similarly, for an example, the event of partition of British India during the independence of India in 1947, solely by religion, or the partition of Pakistan into Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1971, solely for language, which reshaped Indian/Bengali literature to a great extent, is something not shared by American poetics. In this scenario I can say, as the emergent meanings of American forms of poetry in the cultural divergence of American social space are not be able to be articulated into Bengali, similarly psychological and social effects of uprooted refugees, their struggles for existence, constant fights to survive against all odds in a foreign soil, overwhelming refugee crises in Indian social space by the displaced 10 to 12 million people along religious border line, which constructed altogether a new feelings, new poetic expressions in Bengali language, are not be able to be articulated into American space. So wrong and right translation will walk side by side, which is supported by Bernstein in his Pitch of Poetry, “Translation project needs to necessarily include wrong translation along with right…..if we ever arrive at the correct translation, then we have entered a void, a dead space. Otherwise we are in process with one translation, like one possibility, provoking another.”
Murat Nemet-Nejat, a Turkish-American poet/translator, is my constant inspiration for continuing this transcreation project. I met him first time during his reading session of his Animals of Dawn at Kolkata, organized by Kaurab in 2016. I am always fascinated with his translation of Turkish poems into American English. Despite being an American poet, he didn’t write poems directly in the American language. At first, he made the accented American language to conceive the soul of unaccented Turkish language. He created cracks in the accentual rhythms of American language. These cracks or imperfections have become his own accent in his poems. And he used this cracked American language as a tool in his poetry. How? He gave a detailed explanation in his controversial article, Questions of Accent, the first ever prose of Murat I read and fell in love with his idea and started translating in Bengali. It does not refer to traditional ideas of nativeness or foreignness only; instead, it’s a search for a new language and personal identity. We had long exchange of thoughts with Sufism during translation of his book, The Spiritual Life of Replicants for our transcreation project. Sufism, another example of cultural divergence, the core of most of the Bengali folk songs, Baul song, Bhaktigeeti (song of devotion), has a huge effect in our social consciousness and literature which may not be coherent with American social space. The Nobel laureate Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore had a great influence of Sufism in his poems which reshaped Bengali literature and the influence especially in his songs with which Bengalis are still immersed even after 150 years of his birth anniversary. According to Hindu philosophy of Purusa (pure consciousness) & Prakriti (Nature), there is a continuous cycle of evolution and dissolution which follows each other. In the process of evolution, nature is transformed and differentiated into multiplicity of objects and Purusa gets bonded to Prakriti for a state of living being. This fusion leads to an emergence of intellect and ego [self-consciousness]. The liberation from this bondage arises when discriminate knowledge between conscious Purusa and unconscious Nature is realized. This process of realization is wonderfully revealed by Sufism, as Murat said in his book Eda: An Anthology of Contemporary Turkish Poetry – “The supreme Sufi act is weeping, the dissolution of the individual ego by suffering through love, loss, the liquid of tears”. In the process of dissolution the physical existence mingle back into Nature’s five primary elements earth, water, air, fire and space and the undifferentiated primordial substance, the “Photons Escaped” from its particle reality to wave consciousness and comes back to home, the God.
Peter Valente, an American poet, whom I know since 2017 through Murat during our discussion on his book The Spiritual Life of Replicants. Peter Valente sees Murat’s poem “Photon Escaped”, from this book as inversion of Christine doctrine. It may also opposes India’s age-old belief, “In the unreal there is no duration and in the real there is no cessation” (verse-16, Bhagavad Gita, where “unreal” stands for our material body and “real” stands for consciousness). Peter Valente from his background of film and photography wonderfully emphasizes it as, “Consciousness dies, the eye dis-solves into motion, silhouetted by the dark matter of words. This human eye transforms into the mechanical eye, (the ‘I’ merges with the ‘eye’ in an “open-ended weave of language.) a camera that photographs the words as they pass before it, that emerge in light, and vanish in darkness; The Spiritual Life of Replicants is a record of their traces on the page.” Yet I wanted a different explanation for myself from my science balcony. For me, the name of the poem “Photons Escaped” is hiding the essence of the illusion made by Murat. Science defines a photon as an elementary particle, the quantum of the electromagnetic field including electromagnetic radiation such as light and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. The definition of photon itself is directing me towards the consciousness. Again the photon has zero rest mass and is always moving at the speed of light and exhibit wave–particle duality. This dualism of matter and consciousness leads my thought towards the ancient Hindu Vedic philosophy which is perfectly coherent with Murat’s idea as I see it. With this experience I could realize that the idea of a poem may reshaped by cultural beliefs or individual’s own world of realization. Peter Valente surprised me with his extraordinary science fiction, Two Novellas: Parthenogenesis and Plague in the Imperial City, few parts of which is translated for our project. He planted the seed of his novel in the womb of Hermeticism, which is a well known idea in Indian philosophy. The dualism of Purusa and Nature (or I can say it as the dualism of consciousness and matter), similar to the concept stated in Indian Sankhya philosophy, has been weaved with St. Paul and Phoenician princess Jezebel, who was surrounded by the conflict between two religious beliefs, as mentioned in Old Testament, during ancient Semitic civilization. And the process of parthenogenesis is going on just behind them, a fusion, a union of macro and micro. When microcosm is searching the absolute through observation and macrocosm is probing into cosmos, Brahma (the Purusa, the Shiva) is dancing with microcosm in one hand and macrocosm in other and himself becoming hermetic god in the interior of the universe. The knowledge of alchemy, astrology and theurgical magic of hermeticism has been mixed in the process of fusing into a single body and the poet is crossing the boundary of light’s speed by the whirlpool of his flying feet through the space-time curvature. The passenger of the novel has been reached to the role of his own past life and gradually being transformed into a Hermetic god. Yet this novel is not a history of godism, rather a novel of restless or erratic time. He wonderfully placed this time by digging a hole in space and entered into the political space of the present time with his intelligent focus of light into science and logic. As a result a magnificent novel of restless time has been weaved under the veil of science fiction.
John Bloomberg Rissman, an American poet, a Zeitgeist Spam specialist, famous for his epic work of anthology In the House of the Hangman. Through Eileen R. Tabios I came in touch with John Bloomberg with his co-edited anthology Barbaric Vast & Wild: A Gathering of Outside & Subterranean Poetry from Origins to Present: Poems for the Millennium 5. It is an anthology compiled on the writings of many authors of many places and times with the Editors’ commentaries. Still his contribution is not so called commentary. It is like collages of their texts with an internalized language, which gives him the liberty of making infinite sentences on the other side of writing criticism or commentary. It is like an opposite movement of a musical proposal, where forecast of all tunes are spread on the consciousness of dawn, and weave his own poem with a spellbound voice of his deep feelings, assimilated from various author’s text. The collages share the address of the poet’s own world, where love-letters have been written with secret touches of his enlighten home. The poems written by touching the words of many poets of far distant world seems to share its tune to the world that love can touch all the distances of the world. During translation we had lot of exchange of thoughts about our literatures, cultures, mythologies and especially he surprised me with his profound interest and knowledge in Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. Allow me to mention an amusing moment of our dialogue on cultural divergence. It was about one of my translated poem that was referring an ornament of Indian woman. There is a close relationship between love and opening ornaments of spouse in Indian society. It was so certain for me that I didn’t care to give sufficient footnote during the translation. It revealed that translation couldn’t be articulated as I wanted. There may not have any space for ornaments of woman in American society except engagement ring. But in Indian culture woman uses various types of ornaments, not only for her own satisfaction of beauty enhancement, but also for her spouse, and opening those ornaments at night by spouse is a type of foreplay of making love. This experience again proves the effect of cultural divergence in translation.
Michael Boughn, an American poet, whom I know through his well known online journal, ‘Dispatches from the Poetry Wars’. When I received his excellent poetry collection, Hermetic Divagations, a wonderful gift from him, his style of writing in tercet form of stanza and overflowing words between the stanzas, attracted me at the very first place. Then I entered into his world of realization. Hermeticism is an ancient religious belief, a philosophy with the deep knowledge of alchemy, astrology and theurgical magic. In the dualism of matter and consciousness there is a hint of Hermeticism and from the Hermetic Definition Michael has extended to Hermetic Divagations, a hint of divergence. The poet raises his finger towards the uncivilized war of our civilized world. It’s a new reflection in the mirror of the present on the questions about war raised by H.D. At the very beginning of the poems there is a hint, “Part One – Definitions of entrance”. Whose entrance? During translation we had various exchange of thoughts and Michael wonderfully explained this, “The poem is concerned with “hidden entrances” (say, from/to spaces of sense beyond the world of general equivalence that we are trapped in) which she, also, was concerned with, and her entrance is the revelation of such an event.” As if H.D. enters herself into the imaginative space of the poet, into the world of deep consciousness beyond the general equivalence of the visible world which is full of outcry of deceased in the debris of destructions. When all our existence shake in the flame of fire raising from the dark corner of war, her secret entrance opens all the questions peeping from the war-vase. And the poet made us to stand in front of the question of freedom formulation of an opaque world.
Through Charles Bernstein I came in touch with Chinese-American poet Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, and received her collection of poetry Hello, the Roses for translation. The importance of exchange of thoughts once again reflected to me when I was translating her poems. A question raised in my mind that why a search of beauty in nature, its plants, animals and their minute description in natural environment is required to be implanted in poems in the present scenario of the world? It’s an age-old style of poetry. But I was wrong. A detailed reading through her various works and with an exchange of thoughts with the poet I could realize that it is not only looking for beauty but also in search of unity, between myths and landscapes, between fashion and culture, between experience and oblivion. She mentioned in her poem Apache plume, a pink fluffy flowering bush that grows in New Mexico, her homeland. In the background of the Images of New Mexico mesa suffering drought, her poems become a healing fingerprint, which creates a cosmic tune with the quantum bondage of herbal virtuosity that lies under the petals of the flowers, which is never bonded by time but looks for the consciousness that makes the bridge between the civilization and all the creatures of the world. It creates the imagination of an invisible world, which makes a silent communication between plants, animals, and our consciousness. Her enlighten verses open the closed window of our darkened thoughts and give shelter and nourishment to them with the scattered sunshine on the roses, open the veil of wet eyes with sonata of love.
A Filipno-American Poet Eileen R Tabios is known to me through her online journal Galatea Resurrects (A Poetry Engagement). When I received the poems from her magnificent poetry collection Menage A Trois With The 21st Century for translation, I was spellbound by the title of her book. Through the French word Menage A Trois, Eileen has given the hints of her lover whose name is poetry, whom she has implanted in the lap of the 21st century. The treasure of this book, two ancient women, Enheduanna and Gabriela Silang, has been implanted in the poetic space of Eileen with the new light of the present time. Eileen has started her journey with Enheduanna, the first poet in the world history, daughter of King Sargon of Akkad, was appointed as the chief priest of the country in Mesopotamia around 2285-2135 BC. Her devotional hymns for the goddess Inanna were compiled as The Sumeriyan Temple Hymns. Her brother expelled her in the time of political turmoil which is recorded in her book, The Exaltation of Inanna. Then Eileen moves to the eighteenth century towards a freedom fighter Gabriela Silang, the first female leader of the Philippine’s independence movement against Spain. Her husband Diego Silang started the movement which was continued by Gabriela after his death, and soon was arrested within four months and sentenced to death. With the poetic light of Eileen’s mind the particles of impossibilities are germinating within the granular possibilities of longings and receipts of these two women. Ignoring the demands of mortality their eagerness for a true life is moving towards the immortal picture gallery of the universe. The outcry and rhythm of three parts of water is playing in one hand of the poet and enlighten vernacular of one part of soil is blossoming in other hand. As if poet is juggling with two parallel universes to measure the contrast, something in chains something in silence. We had long exchange of thoughts during the translation process. At some point I stuck up with an insurance man as referred by Eileen in her poem, “What makes you defer the plea of eyes, longing to feel what you wish for them because you are generous with what “that insurance man” once said about Poetry: giving pleasure?” I failed to place this insurance man in the poem and Eileen pointed out that it refers to the most famous poet-insurance company executive Wallace Stevens, who was unknown to me till she mentioned it. This experience again proves the necessity of dialogue during translation across different cultural and social space.
Elizabeth Willis, an American poet, was introduced to me by Charles Bernstein and when I received poems from her new book Alive: New and Selected Poems, her poems introduced me for the first time with Rose Hobart, a pioneer actor of America’s 20th Century Film world. American Hollywoodal culture is quite unknown to me. After reading Elizabeth’s poem I saw the director Joseph Cornell’s stirring experimental collage film Rose Hobart. Elizabeth’s poem bridges my thoughts, where the conflict of Rose Hobart between the film world and her own humanity and the director’s surrealistic poetic views tuned coherently. During the exchange of thoughts with the poet I realized how nicely she is implanting the idea of constellations in the appearance of signs, animals, patterns in the sky, in the stars which is a location for mythologies, which contains a sense of fate that, if something is “in the stars”, it is considered inevitable. It looks strange to me when she used ‘Belate it’: to make it late, which is in opposition to Ezra Pound’s saying “make it new.” But the dialogue with the poet reflects the light on her interest in the rich possibilities of things that are considered obsolete or out of date.
Knowing all these barriers, knowing the fact that poetry offers not a moral compass but an aesthetic probe, we still look for balance between translator’s loyalty and liberty. At the first place, the translator is an author, then a translator. And the poet’s authorial entity induces hir towards the originality of hir writings. At first, the abstract form of the actual experience of the poet in the source language is visualized by the translator as a reader. So there is a resonance between the poet and the translator, creates reverberation at the common focal point. Translator wants to implant the intrinsic emotions of the poem in the source language that triggered hir feelings, into the poem in the targeted language, with hir own perception and aesthetic consciousness. Poet’s perception give hir the loyalty to the poet in the source language and hir expressions in the targeted language give hir the liberty. A balance between the two continues like a tightrope walker in circus. The perfect movement of hir legs gives hir the loyalty and hir spread hands send a call of liberty to fly in the sky. A beckoning falcon of words starts flying, creates an imaginative soundtrack which moves silently towards possibilities. When possibilities of alternative sounds blossom, the language gets the call of ceaseless rain, walks down the water-stair of surging river.
Runa Bandyopadhyay 