4. All-Language Poetry and Zaum

Kushnir’s idea of all-language literature does not require the poet to translate every foreign word or to prove mastery of multiple languages. Its purpose is to allow different linguistic systems to coexist as active forces.

In conventional multilingual poetry, one language may explain another. In all-language poetry, languages touch without being subordinated to translation. Sound, rhythm, typography, repetition, and placement create partial understanding even where lexical comprehension is incomplete.

Zaum, invented language, glossolalia, and phonetic deformation can participate in the same field. They are not used as meaningless decoration. They create a zone in which meaning is sensed before it is fully defined.

Border Radio

Agua in the mouth of the broken pipe.
Хлеб beneath the coat.
Lumière blinking from the watchtower.
Casa, says the child,
and points to smoke.
No, says the map.
No casa here.
Shalom in one ear,
alarm in the other.
The radio clears its throat:
vara—zhim—olo—
kesh na vira—
tomorrov, tomorrov—
Nobody translates.
Still, the old woman gathers her photographs.
Still, the soldier lowers his eyes.
Still, the dog begins walking east.
A voice repeats:
home
дом
casa
heim
oma
homa
hromma
hrum
rrrr—
until the word loses its meaning,
Morphing into a sphere of mortal life.

The poem includes words from several languages alongside invented sounds. Their function is not to produce a fully translatable statement. Instead, they create a multilingual field around home, displacement, borders, and recognition.

“Casa” is understood through the child’s gesture toward smoke even before the poem confirms its relation to home. “Хлеб,” meaning bread, appears beneath a coat, where context allows the reader to sense food, concealment, or survival even without knowing the Russian word. “Lumière” functions as light because it blinks from a watchtower.

The invented radio language—“vara—zhim—olo” and “kesh na vira”—does not communicate through dictionary definition. It communicates through interruption, urgency, rhythm, and the characters’ responses. The old woman gathers photographs, the soldier lowers his eyes, and the dog walks east. Their actions make the unknown broadcast meaningful without translating it.

At the end, the word for home passes through multiple languages and then deteriorates into invented sound. The sequence does not suggest that language has failed completely. Instead, it attempts to find a form of “home” beneath or before any national vocabulary. The word “loses its meaning,” both linguistically and politically, “morphing” into human existance.

In poetic practice, all-language composition requires careful attention to context. The foreign or invented word should affect the poem rather than merely decorate it. Its placement, sound, and relation to surrounding images should permit partial recognition. The goal is not total obscurity but liberated incompleteness.