Kavya
Poems from North India Spanish translation by Octavio Paz, English by Eliot Weinberger
Photographs by Nina Subin. 8.5 × 8.5 inches, 39 pps
Inkjet and letterpress printing
I had worked with Paz, Weinberger and Subin once before on a broadside, “The Face and the Wind” a poem by Paz from his time in India. The broadside had a beautiful print of a photograph by Subin from a series of images she had made in India. In the intervening years inkjet technology had made printing fine quality photographs in limited edition books more accessible. This group of poems was originally translated from the Sanskrit into Spanish by Paz during his stay in India as cultural attaché, and translated into English here by Weinberger. Each page spread has the poem represented in the original Sanskrit, Spanish and English, in different arrangements and forms. The intention is to subvert the expectations of the presentations of translated poetry, and, to that end, neither English nor Spanish predominates on the page. Subin’s 9 photographs are interspersed with drawings of traditional Indian design motifs in multiple colors. 45 in the edition. Out of print.