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Do you feel that where you were born and grew up, and above all your family, influenced you to become a writer?

I grew up in Canton, Ohio, the US – a place, sadly, that’s more prosaic than poetic. But in my family, words were important. My father was a lawyer, so I learned early on to be careful with words. My mother was a singer, and the sung word and the performed word ­– sacred song and music drama – were my first influences. I was also a voracious reader. Reading sparked writing in me. My first volume of poetry was a handwritten, illustrated gift to my father on Father’s Day when I was 12.

When did you start writing seriously as an adult?

At university. I honed my skills as a prose writer (as an essayist, not a fiction writer), and I began to write poetry. In the years following university, I began to concentrate on poetry’s technical aspects, and I workshopped a small volume of poems with the late American poet John Ciardi, who both encouraged and influenced me.

A number of your poems have been published in poetry magazines but have never been collected in one volume. What gave rise to your new book, A Land in the Storytelling Sea?

My husband and I lived in Malta from April 2005 until May 2006. We’ve visited once or twice a year every year since. In that year, Malta became one of my themes. Suddenly, I had thousands of photographs and hundreds of journal entries and scores of poems about Malta. A number of poems in this volume have been published separately in literary magazines. But I felt that a collection of poems about and photographs of Malta had to be published in Malta.

What is the greatest joy of writing?

Playing with words. Once I have a working draft of a poem, I begin to play with it. Three aspects of poetry – narrative, rhythm, and rhyme (more specifically, the rhyming devices of alliteration, assonance, and consonance) – are the aspects on which I tend to concentrate.

Some striking poems in this book are based on old legends of the Maltese Islands. How has living in Malta first for a whole year and subsequently for several weeks each year provided stimuli for you as a writer?

Many of my poems originate in story. Malta’s legends were new sources of stories for me and new sources of poetry. I fell in love with Malta when I lived here. I fall in love all over again when I visit.

Your book can be considered as a poetic journal of your experiences of Malta and the Maltese. In it you express yourself in verse, of course, but sometimes in poetic prose, and also through a number of photographs you have taken of Malta. When did you feel you had to use prose, and what role do your photos play?

I use poetry to distil and transform story and image and idea. I use short prose passages almost as I use photographs – as snapshots of moments in time. An ancient, barefoot agricultural worker in a bonnet, an apron, and a long dress, for example, crosses at a crosswalk in front of me, carrying a hoe.

My eye, as a photographer, is a quirky one. I try to use photo-graphy to see the world from new perspectives.

You and your husband, Douglas Haas, are both professional musicians. When in Malta you guest sing with Dion Buhagiar’s resident choir at St John’s Co-Cathedral. I believe this has led to your writing a very elegant English version of a well-known Maltese hymn. What can you tell us about it?

During the month of May, the choir at St John’s recesses to Fil-Ħlewwa ta’ Mejju. I fell in love with the melody. I wanted to bring the hymn to the choir I conduct in Canada, so I asked Dion Buhagiar if he’d translate two verses of the text for me literally. Then I reconstructed the poem in English, following Dun Karm’s sophisticated meter and rhyme scheme. The result was the following:

“In May’s gentle sweetness, O Mother Marija,
in nature’s repleteness, we read your sweet name.
Your name, O Marija, we treasure within us
Pray heaven to win us, your praise to proclaim
O Mary, Son-bringer, O bearer of light,
You’re heaven’s adored one, creation’s delight.
No rose in the garden, O Mother Marija,
shy, blushing, and hidden, is fairer than you.
O dearest Marija, no stars in the night skies
compare with your bright eyes, beloved of Ġesù.”

A Land in the Storytelling Sea: a North American in Malta is published by Faraxa.

www.faraxabooks.com