The decision for Malta native Simone Inguanez to join the UI International Writing Programme required her to quit her job with a law translation company, spend two-and-a-half months away from her new husband, and put off plans to have children.

But the US Embassy in Malta’s request never needed a second thought.

“It was a priority for me,” she said. “I don’t have any regrets. Exposure to different writers and different styles was important to me.”

As a part of the programme, Inguanez, who was on her way to a customary evening tea party with fellow IWP colleagues, said she has met “people from all over the world with different mentalities” – a group that has become “a big family” for her in Iowa City.

The 35-year-old poet’s work has been published twice – her primary collection written in Maltese called Ftit Mara Ftit Tifla (Part Woman Part Child) and another selection of poems translated into English, Water, Fire, Earth, and I, both printed in 2005. Her writing was already well known in Malta before it was published.

Inguanez’s minimalist poems derive from several points of inspiration in her life, including her experiences as a woman, frustrations with love and relationships, travels in other countries, political beliefs, and roots in Malta – a 316-square-kilometre, densely populated Mediterranean island of 400,000 people.

She began writing poetry in secret at 14, creating “bursts of emotion” that she was too embarrassed to show anyone.

“I didn’t want to tell anyone about it,” Inguanez said, comparing her feelings to those of someone hiding that he or she is gay.

The vibrant woman never took any poetry classes in Malta – because, she says, the country believes that writing is not something you can teach, an opinion she does not share. Even without formal guidance, Inguanez said, her poetry develops in phases.

“It was therapeutic in the beginning … introspective, an inner voyage,” she said. “Then it focused more on the outside, writing about other people and issues.”

In her poetry, Inguanez discusses topics that concern her about Malta, including illegal immigration and rapid land development.

Political issues also connected Inguanez with Tali Ariav, an Israeli UI graduate student in translation, who is writing a one-woman monologue based on Inguanez’s poem “Woman.”

Ariav wanted to challenge herself by translating the work of an Arabic writer, but the writers she asked refused to work with her because of tensions caused by her Israeli background. She decided to work with the Maltese language, which is 40 per cent based on Arabic, leading her to Inguanez.

The one-and-a-half month partnership has developed a strong bond between translator and poet. “Her life, her journey related to me in lots of ways,” Ariav said.

One theme Ariav relates to in the writer’s poetry is the feminine experience – Inguanez’s poem “Woman” deals with the painful love between a man and a woman. Ariav said the woman in the poem, who will be embodied in the monologue, has two conflicting emotions inside of her: A desire to love and be loved and a struggle with hurt caused by relationships.

The complexity of womanhood explored in Inguanez’s poetry also includes the importance of female independence, a trait that the translator admires in the poet.

“She is a strong woman,” Ariav said.