The International Festival of the Arts, under the direction of John Schranz, hosted an evening that saw music, poetry and visual media come together at Actionbase Studio in Buskett.
As a celebration of the Maltese language and Maltese musicians, it brought something unique to the festival lineup.
Joe Friggieri read poems, at times accompanied by Carolina Calleja on the harp, Vince Briffa provided a looped video and percussionist Renzo Spiteri worked with Friggieri on a collaborative performance.
The evening started with cups of orange juice (a thimbleful each) and mosquitoes, while a car operated on shuttle service from Verdala Palace to the studio.
Buskett was dark beneath us, the space itself only lit by a raw spotlight.
Somewhere in the distance, a party blaring pop and synth music played over the hum of conversation. When the performers were ready to begin, the guests filled an outdoor podium and we took our seats.
Friggieri opened with a fond nod to author Pierre Mejlak, whose book had just been launched, then addressed himself to other poets and writers in the audience.
The conversation turned to what themes local writers, past and present, focus on in their writing. “The first ecologists in Malta were poets,” he said, “drawing their inspiration from Romanticism and the value of the Bible.” He read a selection of work that ranged from early compositions to more recent poems.
Carolina Calleja’s plaintive harp called out to whatever was still relevant in Friggieri’s verses, a world so faded it would almost seem a Neverland were it not for the earnest reactions they provoke. And throughout, the mosquitoes like gadflies and the summer heat.
Maybe in reaching so high, our literary aspirations have no choice but to return to the earth a little bruised, a little blinded, wandering in the debris of whatever stories we can tell if only to pass the time.
It was interesting to hear Friggieri’s observations (through Stephen Hawking) on the “horror of black holes” and “swollen time” while Lady Gaga’s jangling Judas chorus blew through Buskett.
This constant background sound of pop music from a nearby party blazing over the poetry and the harp perfectly expressed that uneasy relationship of two worlds juxtaposed: one raw, the other controlled, all in movement and all equally striving.
The poet defined his distinguishing method as a writer, transforming the pedestrian into the numinous, and the significance of secularised liturgical motifs in his work.
The simplicity of his ‘ħajja ta’ kuljum’ style that contains as much as the reader/listener is willing to invest. There was a sense that some kind of Maltese stasis, the uneasy look within, was at play here.
Friggieri’s contributions to the evening (the most sustained and substantial throughout) were not so much conventional readings as prolonged criticism surrounding each work. To fans of the poet, this must have been excellent and perhaps if the evening had been billed as an ‘Audience with Friggieri’ it would have felt more satisfying.
Vince Briffa filmed a video of a girl at her toilette, the relevance of which was very much in the eye of the beholder, and Spiteri’s turn on a wide variety of percussive instruments closed the event with exuberant energy, a much needed restorative.
Leaving the evening in the darkness of Buskett, I was more aware than ever of the powerful effects of literary heritage (no matter how desperate we might be to ignore or discount them) in so fledgling a tradition as our own.
And the importance of these events, in exploring a hermeneutics of the Maltese experience, inevitably falls to the creators of tradition themselves.