Arc o Möns > Review of 'Arc o Möns'

This year I have grown runner beans for the first time, and a variety of beetroot that looks like a stick of Blackpool rock when you cut it open, sort of candy-striped, and, at my daughter's insistence, Rainbow carrots. And of course, they can grow here - it's just that it's not what you expect to see in among the Shetland kale and swedes. Just as you don't expect dialect poems dealing in lemons and olives, and talking of a 'birl o jasmine' and 'whicht camellias', which is what you get in Arc O Möns. It is, unusually, a parallel text, where the Spanish originals sit alongside the Shetland dialect versions of poems by Lorca. It's good to be reminded of the source in this way, rather than the English intermediary, especially since I much prefer these full-bodied dialect treatments to the often insipid English translations I have read.

Incidentally, it was reading some of Christie Williamson's translations of Lorca and Neruda which he submitted to the New Shetlander that inspired me to try my own hand at 'translating' into the dialect. Christie's poems suggested to me - and this collection confirms it - that the dialect's small but rich store of words, idioms and references could do justice to the poetry of another culture, although Billy Tait's masterly translations into Shetland dialect and Scots pretty much set the standard for this kind of work decades ago.

Nevertheless, Lorca strikes me as a challenging poet to attempt to render into dialect. The heightened atmosphere, the highly-strung exoticism, the strong local colour of these poems - you might expect these would be difficult to express satisfactorily in staid old Shetland dialect, and Yell dialect at that. After all, (and there are exceptions, I know) the Shetland voice often tends towards the matter-of-fact, remaining stubbornly stolid and self-conscious. It resists grand gestures and the theatrical, unless it is to poke fun at such antics. It is a mark of Christie Williamson's craftsmanship and daring that he has triumphed by using this apparent limitation to his advantage.

The titles alone hint at these poems' underlying drama and archetypal force: Da Unfaithful Wife, Ballad o da Black Döl, Gacela o Desperate Love, He Deed at Dimriv, for example, but just saying them hints at a tongue-in-cheek approach which tempers the histrionics ever so slightly. The title poem, Arc o Möns, begins: 'A arc o black möns/ owre da still sea.// Mi bairns at isna boarn/ is shaestin me.' 'Shaestin' lends a somewhat droll tone to the line, but this concession allows us later on to savour lines like: 'Da sea, turnt ta stane,/ gaffs a hidmost gaff o her waves' and the poem's overall intensity is thus smuggled in. This down-to-earth quality is present also in Da Geetar - where the connotations of that particular pronunciation of 'guitar' pull us back from too much heart-rending and anguish, as does the line: 'Hit's unpossible ta wheesht it.' 'Unpossible' is a great word - almost comical in its rooted resignation - and yet it prepares us for the beautiful and moving: 'Hit greets lik a arrow/ wi nae target, a mirkneen athoot moarneen'. The ending brings us back to something of the earlier swagger, however: 'Ah Geetar!/ Haert mirackled/ bi five swords.'

'Mirackled' must be in everyone's favourite top ten Shetland words, and there are many others on display in this collection: 'tröttel'; 'fleggit'; 'pinnishin'; 'half-gaets'; 'nönin'; 'pirr'; 'glink'; 'lömin', for example. The Yell-inflected drawl of words like 'saund' and faur' lingers in different way from the original Spanish, just as lines like 'An da bretsh glunshes dem' and 'trowe da grummel o da runnicks o mirk' and 'Da mön cam ta da smiddy/ wi her birl o jasmine' have their own special relish.

Lorca's work is lush and sensual and ominous, full of strong colours, transformations, starkness, contrasts, gypsies, horsemen, the moon and again the moon. There's a fatalism, an undercurrent of the inevitable playing itself out, emboldened and brash but unfulfilled more often than not, which lends itself well to the dialect voice we hear in these poems, and they need to be read aloud, by the way. Christie Williamson writes confidently, with considerable flair and invention, and demonstrates a quiet, secure kinship with the originals.

Finally, I fairly like the jizz of this book, to use a bird-watching term, and it fits neatly into the pocket without obscuring the title - always good if you want to advertise your superior taste in reading. Its livery, as is the case with all Hansel publications, is very fine, and while Diana Leslie's superb illustrations could stand on their own, they are absolutely right for this volume.

Review of 'Arc o Möns', Jim Mainland, The New Shetlander, 2009