In many regards, Malta is passing through a renaissance in most of the arts. The younger generation of singers, painters and sculptors, poets, novelists and short story writers are offering a large output which is also very strong on quality.
The development recalls the Sixties. It does not do so in regard of the battles that had to be engaged in then with traditionalists reluctant to move into the new world and even appalled by those of us who ventured in that direction. There are no such battles to be fought now.
Malta is an open society where tradition is respected for all that is good in it, but where artists who refuse to be anchored in it are free to roam wherever their imagination, skills and surging spirit take them. The similarity with the Sixties lies in the extent to which so many younger people are nowadays committed to surmount whatever difficulties might lie in their path to pour out their output not only with enthusiasm but also with an urgency that drives them as if there were no tomorrow.
That does not mean that those from the Sixties, who remain around in reasonable health, and others who followed them soon after, have broken their relationship with the muses. If a few have done that, so many others continue to display impressive energy in giving further free rein to their creative skills.
Witness, among others, Oliver Friggieri, who is now concentrating on writing novels and has produced the beautiful trilogy starting with It-Tfal Jigu bil-Vapuri, the poet Victor Fenech, who now focuses more than ever before on literature for the young, and novelist, short story writer and artist Trevor Zahra, whose latest collection of short Stories - Sepja - was launched by Merlin Library on Friday, not so long after Trevor published very useful guidelines on creative writing.
There have been three other examples of the Maltese renaissance, coming not from the younger generation but from very established artists, who range from senior citizenry to venerable oldish age, but who seem as young at heart as they have ever been. Three fine books that amply prove my assertion clamoured incessantly for my attention, and duly got it....
Richard England: owner of 'a muse of magic, music and feeling'
A recent launching of a collection of selected poems by Richard England offered the public one of the most beautiful books one can acquire. Sanctuaries: Chronicles of Solitary Wanderings is a lush edition by Casa Editrice LibrGa Melfi, of Italy, and Malta's Midsea Books Ltd. The high quality of the book twins the richness of the poems selected to be included in it.
Sanctuaries is introduced by academic, writer and critic Brian J. Dendle, an Oxonian who took his Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from Princeton University. He knows the poetry of Richard England intimately and has commented extensively about it. Professor Dendle ends his introduction to Richard's latest book by focusing on the relationship between one art form and another which, he observes, has been much debated by theoreticians. He finds no better way to offer an evaluation than that made by the poet himself:
"I suppose the architect in me considers poetry as building with words, a form of sculpture in sound," Professor England wrote to Professor Dendle. "The making of a relationship of sound, silence, rhythm and melody is a paramount consideration, as is also the creation of strong imagery and in-depth meaning, all expressed with a controlled feeling. I am particularly interested in the flow, cadence and incantation of the chosen vocabulary, i.e., how the word crafting works phonologically. Perhaps one is searching for a muse of magic, music and feeling that has the capacity to carry the reader away.
"The sounds, tones and semi-tones, or what I would like to term the taste of words, must be balanced by modulations of the intervening silences, which are of course as important as the sounds themselves. Also, I believe that the words must dance not only aurally but also visually."
The architect and visual artist in Richard England interplay with the poet, as the poems are interspersed with many examples of his fine graphics, often drawing on symbols of Malta lying for thousands of years in the bosom of Mother Earth. The flow, cadence and incantation of his chosen vocabulary washes repeatedly over his verses, like the sea in its gentler mood kissing the waiting shore: glacial waters fill your mind/earth's blood flows in your veins/limestone marrow sets your bones... ('In the Middle Sea'). The muse of magic, music and feeling is evident in each of the poems in the book: The legend says that when a city died/this isle was born/under a waning sky of sorrow/its siren song remains unsung/quiescent music hushed to muted silence...('Legend of a Fallen City') One of Malta's leading critics, Dr Paul Xuereb, brings to a close Richard England's Sanctuaries with a succinct study that grasps the heart of the various moods and sectors covered by the poet in what the critic terms "a spiritual diary" ('Pilgrim's Progress'). He recalls that the architect's buildings were meant to be regarded as "statements about the meaning of life, about the relations between man and man, between man and God, about the significance of beauty, physical and spiritual", in the life of man. "Unsurprisingly, therefore, England's poetry is also the work of an image maker... his writing is an endless struggle to achieve what can rarely be achieved: a perfect union between form and content." Richard England's verses discuss, among other things, old age and the ravages that it wreaks and, with honest sadness. He often gazes "on the visage of death". Yet his poetry, whenever read, will always feel eternally young and can never die.
A compelling 'other side' of Gabriel Caruana
Gabriel Caruana is a gentle giant of very few words. He is neither a speaker nor a writer of them. He says what he has to say through his art. I began discovering this when I began to get to know him in the early Seventies. My wife and I were building the house that we would move into and raise our children in Attard. I asked our architect to design one of the walls such that it would have an indent in it, with the specific intention that it would house a ceramic by Gabriel.
I discussed the ceramic with the artist and told him that I saw it in red, in the corner of the largish indent. Gabriel did not reply, he gestured with his artist's fingers that were to launch more pieces of work than the beauty of Troy's Helen launched ships. Gabriel was making a minimalist sign, which I did not comprehend.
"Red," I said, "all red."
He seemed embarrassed, making a minimalising gesture again.
"A touch..." he said.
"All red," I repeated, having seen the colour in one of his works and been deeply moved by it. "Red to go into the corner of that indent - look - like a flaming sun."
Gabriel did not attempt another word. He went to work. Not before long he brought me a wonderful piece of ceramic that turned the indent alive. It was the colour of weathered limestone, with touches of red towards its centre that riveted the eye. It was my face that turned completely red as I finally realised my presumption and stupidity. All along Gabriel had been trying to tell me without offending me than an all-red piece would be crass; what was required was a touch of red.
The man is like that. The combination of his fantasy and his hands speak for him and do so as eloquently as the written and spoken words of a fine writer. That can be confirmed by viewing his ceramic works in so many places all over the Maltese Islands, as well as the number of sculptures in wood he has devised. A book displaying a selection of his ceramics was produced six years ago by Bonne ten Kate. It included a critical essay by Richard England, who captured the essence of Gabriel Caruana in the title of the essay on the artist's "endless creative energy" - 'Earth, Water + Fire'.
The book also included the view of the celebrated English artist Victor Passmore, who had long been a friend and admirer of Malta's leading ceramicist. "Caruana's art," he wrote, "is always fresh and free, always alive and bold: it possesses the same verve that gave birth to the modern independence in painting and sculpture." Some years ago Bonne ten Kate told me that he intended to compile and publish a different sort of book on Gabriel Caruana.
The photographs and details he had to go into were a very demanding task, but he probably expended more effort trying to put together the required financing. In the end, with the help of scores of subscribers to the book and with the support of four government ministries, he succeeded.
The book - Another Side of Gabriel Caruana - is dedicated to his non-ceramic work. It focuses on the artist's three-dimensional work and painting. The publication captures the vast range of the fantastic fantasy that poured out of the artist, whether in his studio or at Il-Mithna ta' Ganu, both a Mecca for friends and admirers who go along to share his working experience and generous genius, plus a glass of wine.
Peter Serracino Inglott wrote a foreword, which among other things, through Caruana's work brings out the idea that every human being is a special kind of artist, rather than that the artist is a special kind of human being. Victor P. Debattista wrote a long introductory essay. Gabriel Caruana, along with a self-portrait on the cover of the book in his unmistakable style, tells it all through the work photographed by Bonne ten Kate. The artist's non-ceramic work is just as eloquent as his ceramic offerings.
Creative chaos in evergreen John Cremona's Equinox
I had become used over the years to knowing him as J.J. Cremona, a leading jurist and academic, author of Malta's Independence Constitution and a gentleman respected in all political and social quarters. As a man of letters he prefers to be known as John Cremona. That is the name shown on his latest collection of poetry in Maltese, confirming the man's versatility. He is equally accomplished in English and Italian, the medium of his early verses.
Ekwinozju, published by Klabb Kotba Maltin on behalf of the APS Bank, includes a critical study penned once again by Peter Serracino Inglott. The cover includes an abstract painting by Alfred Chircop. The book also has drawings by the poet himself, among them a self-portrait he drew in Rome in 1938, when he was working on his Doctorate in Literature.
John Cremona is in sight of the venerable 90s. Yet his poetic feelings, expressed in a beautiful Maltese unsullied by unnecessary foreign words, are as ageless as the first poem by him published - Fr Serracino Inglott reminds us - in Italian in 1933. The critic sees that short poem (ten verses inspired by 'Midnight') as the first modern poem written by a Maltese individual.
It saw the light far before the "creative chaos", which was to sweep the global landscape in later years. It was the harbinger of a poetry that would find expression by John Cremona through the years, no matter that he was wending a path along highways and byways that could hardly inspire poetic feelings.
Perhaps, as with some others, the poems that flew from the pen of the lawyer, academic, top government adviser and Chief Justice were his means of escape. Perhaps yes, in part. But not only that. Before he commenced to amass his professional achievements John Cremona was a poet. He remained a poet wherever life took him, through the years with his beloved Beatrice alongside him, and beyond.
Ekwinozju is dedicated "Lil Beatrice/bhal dejjem/ghal dejjem" ("To Beatrice/as ever/forever") and the most moving of its four sections is Mit-Terrazzin (Il-Poeziji ta' Beatrice) ("From the Terrace (Beatrice's Poems)").
John Cremona and Beatrice, the love of his life forever, and forever alive notwithstanding life's end, are intertwined with nature in the 20 lyrical poems offered by the poet in the section.
From the terrace.../together we escaped in our dreams/riding bareback on our youthfulness/its beauty poetry...
I did not want you to think/today of all days/I left you behind/you are within me as if/melted in my blood...
In many regards John Cremona is as lyrical as the immortal Ruzar Briffa. Hawnhekk f'dal-Gnien ('Here in This Garden') is too beautiful for me to risk spoiling it with my clumsy translation. "The echo of your voice/the breath of leaves trembling before it falls/in the hidden caves/of my sad heart..." is but a weak effort regarding what must be one of the finest poems in the Maltese language.
Fr Serracino Inglott describes this inspired collection as a lyrical autobiography. It is that, and more. The author of the first Maltese modern poem (in its break with tradition) commands attention even now, or perhaps now more than ever, in this Maltese renaissance...