​​“The quarrel you lose to win” an enchanting evening of poetry and song with Meena Kandasamy (acclaimed poet, novelist, translator and anti-caste feminist activist; author of The Gypsy Goddess and Ms. Militancy) and S. Anand (editor at Navayana, a radical anti-caste publishing house).

What is text/textuality? Can translation merely be something from language to language, or is it also from language into another form? How does a poet limit herself when she translates, how does the poet insert himself into a translation?

Meena Kandasamy and S. Anand will share with us stories about how two dead poets speak to them. While Meena will be in conversation with Thiruvalluvar, the Tamil bard who is said to have belonged anywhere between 1st century BCE to 6th century CE, Anand will tell us how the work of Kabir, the poet from 15th century Benares, comes to him riding the crests of songs.

In a lovers’ quarrel, A loom of such length and breadth

the loser wins—and The sun its fibres and threads

this truth is seen Listen—to the rise and fall of breath

in the sex There’s no life after death

—Thiruvalluvar —Kabir

The event is free and open to the public.

Sponsored by Creative Writing/Warwick Thursdays