The Gwyl Gerdd Llanfyllin Festival

Saudade: An anthology of fado poetry edited by Mimi Khalvati; selected by Vasco Graça Moura

Saudade: it is so difficult to translate the yearning soul of Fado music, Portugal's urban folk tradition. Some call it melancholy or longing, but these approximations fail to capture saudade's contradictions, the sweet heart-sickness of a sea-faring nation, gazing across the distances of the Atlantic Ocean, yet holding their fado (fate) close to their heart.

So what happens when you ask 18 of our finest poets - versed in the art of translation but mostly coming to the music for the first time - to create versions in English of the poetry on which Fado songs are based? Grey Gowrie, Elaine Feinstein, Don Paterson and others find themselves challenged, as Carol Rumens describes it, to perform 'a translation double-act', turning 'a poetic song in one language into a song-like poem in another'. Their approaches span the range from close equivalence to loose 'imitation', but all seek to convey some essence of the culture and music of Fado.

The music has now taken its rightful place on the world stage, but Fado poetry is still little known outside Portugal. Saudade - the first ever anthology in English - offers poems from across the repertoire: peasant songs from Fado's earliest days, songs from the genre's greatest poets, exuberant evocations of the low-life Fado 'scene', metaphysical speculation, songs of resistance, and, above all, of love.

Saudade is published by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. It can be ordered from all good bookshops or www.centralbooks.com

Price: £8.50 | ISBN: 978 1 903080 13 9