It really happens. Every time someone insists Maltese poetry is dead or down in the doldrums, out comes a book that quickly proves him or her wrong. It is a pattern that has actually been repeating itself since the great post-WWII poetic eruption that helped establish, through such household names as Dun Karm, Rużar Briffa, Karmenu Vassallo, Ġuże' Chetcuti and several others, the melodic medium of poetry among many Maltese readers.

The continued attempts since at writing Maltese poetry off have been met with the same retort: more enthusiasm for new and aggressive publications that not only show how sweetly does the Maltese language lend itself to the bard's handcraft, but also that poetic quality and challenging themes are there for one to find and delve into. The Sixties were a perfect example of this, no doubt inspired and abetted by the social awakening that had triggered the explosion all over the world of new musical and writing ventures, new liberal values and new artistic explorations that distinguished, and continue to mark, that generation to this day.

Louis Briffa sits comfortably in between these two historic literary epochs. Bil-Boqxiex is an exciting proposition to the lover of poetry in general and a valid contribution to the Maltese language. It carries the same weight of exhilaration and vision as that of his first collection of poetry, the award-winning Bil-Varloppa (2006). Twelve years on, he makes this more obvious with his technical skill that shows he is at home with both the free-riding aspect of modern 20th/21st poetry and the romantic structure at which he excels as if born to it.

Tributes to Briffa's poetry have been numerous over the years and he has certainly become recognised as an overwhelming voice for his generation - today's crop of 40-something Maltese poets with a message to deliver and a message to receive. I hazard to refer to it as the "courier generation" in that it lacks the gritty protest element of the previous generations, but is clearer, fresher and more user-friendly, to steal a word from the digital society that we live in. The user is, of course, the inevitably delighted reader.

As ever, Briffa writes trenchantly of life as he sees it swirling around him... he can be almost unintentionally witty as in L-Imħabba Bħal Ċuqlajta, caustic as in Bħal Ħuta Mġewħa and painfully truthful as in Ritorn Għalija Hemm but with measured good tase and extreme caution. Not a rebel, but a fighter. Not a radical, but a fire-starter. It is this hybrid identity that gives Briffa his particular niche among today's generation of Maltese poets, many of whom sometimes go on a tangent when a bridge would be a lot more useful.

As he has always done since I first had the opportunity to meet this gentle giant personally several years ago, Louis Briffa writes with the immediacy of the present without overlooking the past he has either lived or read. There is, however, a melanchonic touch that sometimes disturbs the reader because of its frequency, but he is still a poet who certainly does not let you down when, paradoxically, the tension is up.

Briffa is a fine modern poet whose work reflects both the landscape and the spirit of his people: images of streets, stones, trees, animals... there is a stark power to his poetry. He represents a generation of poets and writers in search of a proper voice within the confines of Maltese literature. Many of them went unheard, unnoticed and, to a degree, even ignored, but Briffa's star has shown all along. With this remarkable collection he has entered a later stage of verse-mongering which is as exciting as his first poetic salvos, but undoubtedly feel and sound a lot more knowledgeable and down to earth. The maturity stage.

The poetry of Louis Briffa brings together several of the main strands of Maltese poetry. There is also a strong element of the folk factor in many of his lyrics, particularly with the use of functional religous idioms and expressions, which somehow produces a fusion of the ancient with contemporary urban and rural scenes, as in Fuq l-Għolja Teħmed Kelmti.

There is a sense of the mysterious and the numinous in his poetry, which is more often than not combined with an earthy sensuality that prevents it from being neither vague and exagerratedly dreamy nor patently doctrinal.

The world of the poetry in Bil-Boqxiex is a system of connections; everything touches and connects with everything else with the message that there is nothing inanimate in the universe.

Bil-Boqxiex, a collection of poetry in Maltese by Louis Briffa

(Gutenberg Press, ISBN 978-99957-1-206-8)