Holidaying in Gozo one summer, a young successful businessman came up to me with a strange request. I want to become a politician, he told me. Will you teach me politics?
The idea had never occurred to me but I knew the answer straightaway. I can suggest some reading for you, I said. You can go through the concepts underlying politics, such as democracy, equality and justice. You should also follow political events closely, not least by reading the parliamentary reports in The Times.
But, I added, I do not think you can learn to be a politician. Politicians are born, not made. I knew what I was talking about. I was then in politics. I had read the concepts, and examined political institutions, having had to do so in my formal studies of politics and economics. Yet, though I had been trying to practise politics for a long time, I never really became a politician. That is exemplified by my failure to achieve much significant success in the art.
This tangential reflection struck me when I received two books of poetry from friends I respect a great deal. There is not much poetry in politics, though a few poets have become real politicians, like Anton Buttigieg. But, as in politics, one does not become a poet. One is born so. The defining element, to my mind, is the remarkable intensity in the soul of a true poet. Which is why there are far more books of poetry written than there are real poets.
The two books I received were by real poets, Over 30 years and many experiences separate them. But the intensity of their heart as reflected in their poetry makes them stand out as true poets.
Richard England is well known for his uncompromising style in architecture. Some do not agree with a few of his works. That has not deterred him from following his own inclinations. He has done so, too, in the paintings he has produced, as well as in a number of books of poetry which are not as widely read as they should be.
The latest product of the intensity of England's soul is a beautifully edited selection of his poems. He titled it Clavichords. As with the whole of England's range of artistry the meaning is not a single focus. It is found in every line of the sculptured poetry he has included in the selection.
In an essay by philosopher and poet Joe Friggieri towards the end of the book, he asserts that the leitmotif of the poems is time. England is truly immersed in time, its effect on him and now, in his early seventies and the autumn of his brilliant life, the sight of death somewhere over the horizon. "My passing words," he sings in unaffected melancholy, "my tales in verse/will survive/in those I love/and perhaps/who knows/later on/their own."
Every poem in the book is quotable, including examples of his glorious fantasy. "If I walk the rainbow/can I unlock the moon/If in reverie I cross time/shall I dream tomorrow?"
My favourite is Life Can Be a Poem Too: "As I track the pathways of my past/too late I come to know/ that/if you thread your verse in rhyme/life can be a poem too."
Perhaps the poem which most typifies England's philosophy is What One Wants to Do. "Only/by ceding discipline/and doing/what one wants to do/instead of/what one has to do/can one/attain freedom."
Louis Briffa, who has yet to approach middle age, has been writing poetry since he was nine. Two years ago he published a breathtaking volume in Maltese which he titled Bil-Varloppa. Varloppa is a carpenter's plane. It is an apt symbol of how Briffa approaches poetry, his intensity never allowing any straying from his tightness of evocative thought and expression.
The volume won him widespread acclaim and gained him the National Book Award for poetry. A selection of the poems in that volume has been translated by Marie Rose Caruana. It is published with dual (Maltese and English) text as a slim, exquisitely produced hardback titled, The Tale of a Grasshopper and a Tomato, and other poems.
If I say that I prefer the Maltese version of Briffa's poems it is no reflection on Caruana, whose feats include a translation of Oliver Friggieri's memories, Ġiżimin li Qatt ma Jiftah (Jasmine Blossoms for All Time). It is just that the Maltese language in the hands of master craftsmen like Briffa lends itself naturally to intense poetry. The poet's grasp of the language, whatever the topic he covers, is amazing. It is at its best in a delicately controlled erotic poem, one of the areas the poet is not afraid to explore, evoking admiration and never arousing disgust.
Charles Briffa introduces the book with a learned study (How to Translate a Poet), suggesting among other things that Louis makes his poetry "an arena for meditation". Like England, Louis tends to write in the first person singular pronoun, exploring themes such as loneliness, love, travelling, globalisation, the countryside, eroticism, politics, existentialism, environmental issues, Christian belief, language and poetry.
"You know full well what silence is," writes Louis in a moment of hope, "you know deep down what is reserve/you know cavalry 'nd what it is/you know a ray of light's preserves."
The intensity of true poetry, England and Louis confirm, is all-enveloping.