Anant Kumar - Poetry Beyond Borders?

"Poetry is what gets lost in translation" - Robert Frost

I'm back from Iceland and have lots to write about that, but first the talk I went to today: Anant Kumar - Poetry Beyond Borders. Kumar is a poet of Indian origin, living, working and writing in Germany. His talk was meant to address how to overcome cultural differences in poetry. It didn't. At least not explicitly. Instead, Kumar read the introduction to his new book, Stories Without Borders, and several poems, in German and English simultaneously (one verse in each language at a time). Then he repeatedly reminded us that he is "not a best-selling author" while asking why people - academics he has never met - have given so much time and effort to translate his work for free. While I wasn't particularly enthralled with Kumar's poetry and disappointed that his talk didn't give me what I expected from it, it nonetheless got me thinking.

Firstly, Kumar's question - while not what the talk was supposed to be about - is an interesting one. Why do people translate for free? Kumar himself suggested that it comes down to funding. There is so little funding for translators to get their work published that they will work for free if it means getting their name in print. This seems a bit cynical for me though. While he's probably right, I like to maintain a more romantic view that people fall in love with texts and want to share them with the world. I know there are many books that I love and would one day like to translate just so that they could reach a wider audience.

Secondly, Kumar unintentionally made an interesting case for poetry beyond borders by talking in German to an audience who he assumed understood the language when many of us didn't. My German is rudimentary at best (aber ich lerne!) but I enjoyed listening to Kumar read his poems in their original language, more so than in English. It made me think that perhaps the sound of words, their rhythm, their intensity can produce a stronger effect than their semantic meaning. It occurred to me then that poetry can escape linguistic borders in a way that no other literature can. Geographical borders are even more easily transcended, as Kumar himself pointed out that his readers are not 'German' but 'German-speaking', be that in Austria, Switzerland, Turkey or indeed a German teacher in the United States.

What about cultural borders then? When asked if he tried to bridge the gap between Indian and German literary traditions, Kumar said that it is not his intention, but he cannot avoid references to India and its culture. He nonetheless insisted that he was a German writer, as he writes and is almost entirely received in German. Does this mean that the language something is written and read in affects how it is read and interpreted? Does reading a language imply certain cultural understanding? Are we returning to Herder's argument that language is an expression of the soul of a people?  That would surely imply that poetry cannot truly transcend borders, but experience would tell me otherwise. As usual, I have no real answers, only questions to ponder.