The April 2009 issue of Poetry is the translation issue. It’s full of poetry translated into English from French, German, Chinese, and Spanish. And, lo and behold, there’s even a poem by Biddy Jenkinson, translated from Irish by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.

Ní Dhomhnaill was the first contemporary Irish poet I encountered, with a translation exercise from Sean T. Kelly in the basement of the Irish Well. She’s one of the easier Irish poets to find–a well-stocked American bookstore may well have a dusty copy of “Pharaoh’s Daughter” or “Rogha Danta” tucked away on the poetry shelf. She’s also pretty accessible, with a strong vein of lyricism that reaches back into the oral tradition. And she’s amazing. Which is why I’ve avoided translating her–I can’t do her justice, and prefer to leave the work of rendering her into English to people who are up to the task (like Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon).

But since it’s almost National Poetry Month, and since Ní Dhomhnaill has offered up a translation of her own, here’s one that I’m pretty confident of. This is a poem that I’ve committed to memory, and which I recited (to the glee of John Dingley, who procured the beer and whiskey, and the consternation of my bride, who bristles at my efforts at speaking foreign languages unless it results in coffee and pastries in Barcelona or Florence) at my wedding. I only glanced a couple times at John Montague’s translation in Pharaoh’s Daughter, enough to know that his rendering is much freer, and better, than mine.

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Oileán

le Nuala Ní Dhomhaill

Oileán is ea do chorp
í lár na mara móire.
Tá do ghéaga spréite ar bhraillín
gléigeal os farraige faoileán.

Toibreacha fíoruisce iad t’uisí
tá íochtar fola orthua is uachtar meala.
Thabharfaidís fuarán dom
í lár mo bheirfin
is deoch slánithe
sa bhfiabhras.

Tá do dhá shúil
mar locha sléibhe
lá breá Lúnasa
nuair a bhíonn an spéir
ag glinniúint sna huiscí.
Giolcaigh scubacha iad t’fhabhraí
ag fás faoina gciumhais.

Is dá mbeadh agam báidín
chun teacht faoi do dhéin,
báidín fiondruine,
gan barrchleite amach uirthi
n&aacucte; bunchleite isteach uirthi
ach aon chleite amháin
droimeann dearg
ag déanamh ceoil
dom fhéin ar bord,

thógfainn suas
na seolta boga bána
bogóideacha; threabhfainn
trí fharraigí arda

is thiocfainn chughat
mar a luíonn tú
uigneach, iathghlas,
oileánach.

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Island

by Nuala Ní Dhomhaill

Your body is an island
in the middle of the ocean.
Your splayed limbs on the sheets
are bright as gulls’ wings.

Your brow is a spring well
with blood in the depths and honey above.
You are a cooling fountain
in the sweltering heat
and a healing drink
to my fever.

Your two eyes
are mountain lakes
on a bright August afternoon
when the sky
glimmers in the water.
Your eyelashes are rushes
ringing the shore.

And if I had a little boat
to carry me to you,
a boat of findrinny,
with neither a top stitch

nor bottom stich out of place,
but a single feather
of white-backed red
to make my music
at sea,

to raise up
the soft white sales
full-bellied with wind; plowing
through high seas

and come beside you
where you lie back,
solitary, emerald,
islanded.