Antena

One winter I found myself living in a strange land, in the middle of my own country, somewhere I had never been. No peaks or valleys, miles of flat covered with snow. For a brief time, I earned an income answering calls from all states, tending to a vexed populace, untangling corporate glitches through a headset device.

Inside that monolith of cubicles, patterns of speech shared a certain uniformity, an elongated o, a quickened pace. Where I was from, at least 185 languages are reported spoken, each with an attendant inflection, pitch, timbre. Homesick in my own nation, it wasn't English I missed but the multiplicity of language, even within a single one.  

The Intermedium series concludes with my conversation with Antena, the collaborative created by Jen Hofer and John Pluecker.  As individuals Hofer and Pluecker have carried out extensive projects in translation and poetics.  United as Antena, they create manifestos and how-to guides regarding translation, among many other thought-provoking interventions.  As the conversation demonstrates, Hofer and Pluecker have reflected extensively on values and practices associated with literary translation while pursuing experiment.  In the context of a poetics magazine, the Antena project merits special attention for another whole zone of exploration:  it advances conversations and events to highlight specific complexities of interpretation (spoken and signed), with special attention to language justice. 

I met with long-time colleagues and collaborators Clark Lunberry and Hiroko Washizu in Tokyo to discuss Sawako Nakayasu’s book of translations and anti-translations Mouth: Eats Color.