[attach id=201759 size="medium"][/attach]

Charles Bezzina: Kwadri tal-Imgħoddi – semi-autobiographical recollections: self-published, 2012; 123 pp., €10

I have already had the chance to comment on various books published by the Gozitan poet and writer Charles Bezzina, in their majority poetry collections.

Lately, I have also hugely enjoyed translating his superb war memoirs Meta Karbet is-Sirena into English, and this further confirmed my belief that a true poet is poetic even in his most prosaic attempts at literature.

And if I needed further persuasion about this, out comes Kwadri tal-Imgħoddi which, in spite of its being a semi-autobiography in prose, is closely related to all the previous poetry outpoured by Bezzina, and compounds the effusive outpourings in his every poetry collection. The only difference here is that most of the poetry is invariably poetic prose. But poetry nonetheless.

In his brief but highly analytical foreword to the book, Oliver Friggieri states that, like every other poet or writer, Bezzina too has felt the need of recalling his past, has projected himself back to his younger days, evoking days of yore, delightful descriptions of people who no longer roam the earth, of places now changed but still unchanged in the overall nostalgic and evocative musings, everything culminating into an intense, almost reverent, tribute of the author’s to his beloved Gozo.

For, indeed, as in almost everything that Bezzina writes, Gozo is at centre stage, it is the genesis of every thought, of every word which will eventually be committed to paper, mostly as poetry.

The first chapters of the book deal with Gozo in the mid-1960s, a series of enchanting descriptions that are simply multi-coloured cameos of a quite different Gozo.

The author describes various streets, squares, shops, pastimes, customs, and sights which have since vanished or are about to.

The following chapters are more personal, more intimately linked with the author himself. They deal with places which formed the stage, with its entrances and its exits, as well as the backdrops, for the many characters of Bezzina’s young days: the Pjazza tat-Tokk, Triq il-Palma, the street where he spent his childhood, and where he still resides, the band club, his First Holy Communion, the school he attended and his schooldays, and then the characters themselves who complemented his everyday life in Rabat.

And it is to a good number of these characters that Bezzina ultimately pays tribute, with something quite original in local literature. Besides the relative photos, the author gives detailed descriptions of 21 Gozitans who shared their simple but very happy lives with him. Bezzina dedicates a poem of his to each and every one of them.

Each poem, written in the classical style, is a sort of coda to the oft amusing relative account that precedes it. In both, one can feel the love that the author still bears these characters, whom he still fondly remembers, and who, in a way, and as far as he is concerned, are still alive and fit perfectly into the overall picture of the Gozo that Bezzina will forever love and will never forget.

Reading this book is tantamount to a trip to Gozo; not much is different today in the little island. The lavish landscapes, the greenery, the pastoral beauty are still there, but here the trip is to a Gozo of days gone by; a Gozo as seen through the young eyes of one of its most ardent sons who, as he grew older, never missed a chance to extol the island’s beauty, people, customs, uniqueness even.

And the trip would be indeed an adventure which one would thoroughly enjoy, and certainly won’t regret to have embarked upon.

The crowning glory of this highly readable and enjoyable book is the ravishingly beautiful picture on the front cover, showing a deserted and typically quiet street in Gozo, the humble buildings just being touched by the early rays of dawn.

In the empty street, the haunting silence reigns supreme; the street itself seems to be still lulled by the serenity of an early morning, and is seemingly still dreaming of (and enjoying) the sweet-sad nostalgia that led Bezzina himself to write his book.

For indeed, the predominant medium here is the deep purple poetic nostalgia that pervades and tints the book from page to page; and everything stems from the immense love that Bezzina bears his beautiful and enchanting island.