2016 Stephen Spender prize for poetry in translation – the winners

From poems originally written in 41 different languages, judges selected translations from Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s Gaelic, Maria Teresa Horta’s Portuguese and Federico García Lorca’s Spanish

When many of our fellow citizens seem to be glaring at the larger world through arrow-slits, and educational opportunities are narrowed by the abolition of humanities A-levels, it’s heartening to find literary curiosity and ambition alive and well, with young people among those showing the way. The annual Stephen Spender prize for poetry in translation invites adult and younger translators to submit English versions of any poem from any language and period. This year’s entry, judged by Katie Gramich, Stephen Romer and myself, encompassed 41 languages. Alongside some familiar work against which translators like to test themselves, it was good to see material new to us.

In the 14-and-under section, there was an encouraging engagement with the difficult directness and immediate depth of feeling in Lorca (“Desire”, translated by Tomás Sergeant, the winner) and Machado (“The Crime”, Thomas Delgado-Little). The winner of the 18-and-under group, John Tinneny’s “Persephone”, from Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s Irish, retells the myth from the viewpoint of a naive and fearless girl who’s got in over her head and is saying more than perhaps she knows. Tinneny manages tone and preserves ambiguity well.

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