ANYONE WHO HAS STUDIED A language will be familiar with being given a chunk of prose and asked to translate it into English. I always enjoyed this, though when my Latin teacher showed me the website of The Times Stephen Spender Prize for poetry translation, I thought: “I could never produce anything like that!” The previous winners looked so polished it seemed they must have sprung fully formed from their translators' heads. But I like a challenge.

All translators try to get as close as possible to the experience of reading the original. At one extreme, this involves finding words that mimic the sound of the foreign poem, often with surreal effects, or giving the original words in the original order with scant regard for English syntax. At the other, it produces a poem that feels like it was written in the English tradition, using English verse forms and idioms that the translator feels are equivalent to those the foreign poet used.

Experimentation is key, and it is striking to see how different two versions of the same poem can be. There is a prose poem by Baudelaire whose first line could be rendered equally well as “It is necessary always to be intoxicated” and “You've got to get drunk all the time”. While there can be only one original version, translators can consider the possibilities created by the English language's particularly rich vocabulary, and give their own interpretation of the French poem. There are as many ways to translate a poem as there are potential translators, and the Stephen Spender prize provides a great opportunity to discover how interesting and rewarding poetry translation can be.

The author won the 18-and-under category last year with a translation of Horace. To read it, go to www.stephen-spender.org

How to enter

Entrants must submit a translation of a poem from any language, modern or Classical, into English, with a commentary of no more than 300 words covering the reason for choosing the poem and the difficulties that they encountered.

There will be three prizes in the Open and 18-and-under categories and one in the 14-and-under category, ranging from £50 to £500. All winning entries will be published in a booklet and selected poems will be printed in The Times.

A charge of £3 will be made for each entry (entrants aged 18 or under are exempted), to arrive no later than May 23, 2008. Results will be published by October 25. Further details and an entry form are on www.stephen-spender.org, or can be obtained from 3, Old Wish Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex BN21 4JX.

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