Monday 14th November 2011
Andrew Wynn Owen (SH 2006-2011) followed on from national successes in the Ledbury Festival Competition and Foyle Young Poets with first prize in the highly-esteemed Sir Stephen Spender Prize for translation. His poem is a faithfully textured alliterative weave, with some beautifully daring shifts in diction that make the finished article dive back into the tenth century and leap into the twenty first. Such masterly control augers well for Andrew’s poetic career at Oxford (he has just gone up to read English at Madgalen College), and beyond.
Below are some judges’ comments:
“This year’s entries, as ever, included some magnificent translations by people of all ages, from under-14 to over 75. There were several extremely good Anglo-Saxon translations. Andrew Wynn Owen’s ‘The Whale’ won the under-18 category, When judging, we look carefully not only at the translations but also at how the translators explain themselves in their commentaries. The quality of work submitted this year was so high that our list of commended entries is longer than usual. What this competition continues to show is that there are dozens of writers, old and young, experimenting with language and producing beautiful, memorable works of art. Stephen Spender would have been delighted”. Susan Bassnet
“….But the masterful alliteration and visual power of Andrew Wynn Owen’s rendition of ‘The Whale’ from the Exeter Book would have won him at least a commendation in the Open category." Edith Hall
“This exciting after-ness of translations is especially evident in the winners of the Open and the 18-and-under. Both are from the Anglo-Saxon, and both are inspired not just in their diction, rhythms, register, sound-patterning and lineation but in all the specific, detailed and immediate choices that make translation succeed or fail. Above all, however, the translators made the poems feel ancient – which is what they are: heavy with age in the best, most resonant way – but never archaic." Patrick McGuinness
"In the other two categories it was the year of the Old English. The 18-and-unders were very strong. ‘The Whale’, translated by Andrew Wynn Owen, was beautifully handled, its alliterations unfussy and tidal, the difficult task of holding together modern, colloquial and standard diction mastered with great skill. ‘I sing of a fish with all my wiles / in woven words, of the wondrous whale’ is a terrific beginning and so it goes on." George Szirtes
The Whale
I sing of a fish, with all my wiles
in woven words, of the wondrous whale.
He often appears to unwary wanderers
fierce and unfriendly to all seafarers,
to many a man. He is called Fastitocalon,
this flubber of the ocean lanes.
He resembles a rock roughly eroded
or a seething straggle of strangleweed
bounded by sandbanks, basking offshore
so seafarers think they have spotted shelter.
Now they fix their high-keeled ship
to this trick-land with unravelled rope
and tether the sea-steeds at ocean’s edge;
they climb to the top of that ridge
in strong spirits; their ships saunter
sturdy by shore, surrounded by water.
At length the tired crew pitch tents,
bearing no further fears of disturbance.
There, on the summit, a fire is fuelled
and a blaze built; they are all heartened
but bent-double, they rankle for rest.
When the master monster, the briny beast,
supposes the sailors are sound asleep
and kip in camp, content with the weather,
he suddenly slides under the surface;
he speedily dives to his shadowy bed,
delivering sailors and ships to drown
in the Doors of Death.
That’s also the deal with demons,
the Faustpact-forgers who, by lying,
lure our best men with mischievous magicking;
they guile them from God with sordid sorcery
and lead them a dance so they tragically try
for a monster’s clemency and, at the close,
are dragged down by that friend-foe.
When the devious demon is certain
the Sons of Man, after terrible torture,
are totally brainwashed, bound to his will,
with cunning intelligence he becomes their killer –
sinners who spread his evil on earth,
overreaching and ruthless. Now, under cover
of his enchanted helmet, he digs down to Hell,
that system of circles, that endless abyss
below the mists, just as the whale
scuppers seafarers, both sailors and ships.
But mighty whale, the water-traveller,
knows another miracle still more marvellous.
If he is hungry when wandering
and the beast’s belly moans for feasting,
the ocean-warden widens his mouth,
moving his lips. A sweet scent glides out
and gallons of fish are gulled inside,
thrashing towards the source of the smell
and thronging together, a heedless heap
that jam-packs his jaw. So, in a swipe,
those unprisable chops imprison their prey.
Translated from the Anglo-Saxon by Andrew Wynn Owen