Miriam Calleja can be described by the unusual title of poet-pharmacist. She speaks to Veronica Stivala about her first anthology and points out how the two activities are actually closely connected.

Photo: Jacob SammutPhoto: Jacob Sammut

Framed by a square-shaped opening at the top of a flight of stairs at Palazzo Pereira in Valletta, Miriam Calleja addressed the guests of her poetry book launch held earlier this month.

She wore a beautiful, burgundy 1950s inspired dress with gathered sleeves and a flattering V-neck. Her dress matched perfectly the cover of her first poetry book, Pomegranate Heart, and, indeed, in which the colour red also features prominently.

She explained to her guests how the book’s title is also the title of one of her poems.

“Pomegranate Heart speaks about leaving an indelible mark, a stain, in someone’s life,” she said.

“Each poem is about a moment that has ‘stained’ me in some way.” She chose the title of this poem because she felt that it most closely represented the reason why she writes.

Calleja is not your average writer. Then again, who is your average writer? What I mean to say is that writing is not her full-time profession; she interestingly works as a pharmacist and quality assurance manager by day, even though she was writing poetry “before I’d even chosen to study sciences”.

“Both areas of my life give me satisfaction in different ways,” she says. After years of doing both, in subtle ways her extra-curricular activities also thrive on the fact that she feels she is making a difference in someone’s life.

“I’m connecting. I’m making someone feel understood and less alone,” she says.

She adds that, while the different activities might initially look disconnected, being immersed in a healthcare environment makes you aware of just how fragile we are, how different and simultaneously similar, how we all need to love and be loved, how we need each other.

Calleja grew up reading anything she could lay her hands on. Her parents encouraged her to read and took her to a library every Saturday.

Later, as a teenager facing the big monster of ‘growing up’ she started to put her thoughts down in order to try to understand them. She kept diaries, but also started to dabble in poetry.

Each poem is about a person or an interaction with a person that is unique

This poet-pharmacist has not had any formal education on how to write poetry and does not think it’s something you can really learn. By this she means that being sensitive to life, being in tune to the language’s nuances and its rhythms may perhaps be more important. But, of course, she does believe one can learn how to refine and make poetry more accessible.

I find it intriguing that Calleja writes in both English and Maltese. Does she find the languages lend themselves to different moods, thoughts and expressions? What decides her choice of language?

She admits that it is “hard to draw a defining line”, but the closest answer would be to say that she tends to use Maltese “when the memory is related to [her] childhood or the experience happens in a place which feels very Maltese”.

“My brain works in English,” she says, “but Maltese is a very descriptive language that makes me feel grounded, Mediterranean, proud.”

Speaking about the poems in Pomegranate Heart, Calleja says each is “a snapshot of a moment, a means by which the small details, movements, thoughts, scents and feelings are capture”.

Elaborating on this, she explains that each poem is about a person or an interaction with a person that is unique in that moment. It is a story and a number of stories, it is the way we felt and moved, how the air smelled, how we connected. It happened and then was gone forever. “Only the people present know this moment and the magic is in capturing it as best I can.”

One cannot skirt the fact that poetry is not the most popular of mediums for communication today. What does Calleja see the role of poetry to be in today’s society?

Admitting she is constantly aware of this, she also knows that “the reason for it is that most people view poetry as something archaic, something they had to learn by heart in school, and something that they didn’t understand”.

Calleja’s aim is to make poetry in general more approachable. Through salon and reading events, poetry is slowly making its way back in and she is noticing that more people appreciate it than she thought at first.

Indeed, the salon evenings Calleja refers to are events she organises, encouraging people to share their work. Calleja is definitely on a creative roll and is already onto her next project, a mere 10 days after the poetry book launch. Today sees the final performance of Trap-Ease: A Physical Poem, a physical theatre piece incorporating her poetry, at Palazzo Pereira, Valletta, at 8pm.

She is also working with photographer Jacob Sammut on a number of exhibitions, one of which will be held during Notte Bianca at Palazzo Pereira.

Pomegrenate Heart is published by Ede Books.

www.edebooks.eu

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