Poeżiji
Author: John Cremona
Klabb Kotba Maltin, 2018. xxxi,
174p. ISBN 978-99932-7-690-6
This collection of charming poetry is the author's seventh, and fifth in which he has published alluring verse in Maltese. Cremona has recently happily celebrated his 101 birthday, and this compilation is undoubtedly a lasting poetic testament and, as he himself would put it, a testament of love. In his verse, love, that underpins his entire work, is dispensed without restraint to the land of his birth, in its natural and cultural embodiment; to his mother tongue, which he recurrently enriches with the creation of each new poem, however deceptively simple it might at first glance appear; to family, and to his perennial love, Beatrice, to whom each of his books is dedicated, bħal dejjem, għal dejjem.
In this volume, prefaced with a critical study by Prof. Charles Briffa, the poems are sectioned into five parts, the first four being selections from previous compilations dating to 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2012, with the final section containing 48 Poeżiji Godda. It is this section that I shall give space to in this brief review. The volume is supplemented by a methodical bibliography of Cremona's works compiled by the poet's daughter, the librarian, Mary Samut-Tagliaferro.
What do the Poeżiji Ġodda tell us? Memories of a lifetime spill over pages that speak of an idyllic sea and a countryside of the honeyed isle that daily becomes less and less. Yet, persisting in the poet's mind are the taste and colour of home and the blinding light of Maltese rooftops etched in remembrance and fading eyesight. The moods and interludes of time and memory are embroidered with lush vocabulary in nimble expression. None of the poems can be described as long, with a few being veritable gems of capturing perception and moments in time thriftily packaged in not more than a dozen brief lines. Is-Silla, for instance, 60 words in all, is for me an ecological poem par excellance - a sad lament at the loss of flora, countryside and fauna.
Cremona's verse thus offers sanctuary to those who have become weary of the onslaught of plenty and its attendant frenzy of consumption and addiction to cramming every available space with yet more building. Contrasting his memories of Il-Qbajjar in his beloved Gozo, where żiemel għarqan/wassalna f'karozzin/ghax-xhur tas-sajf id-dar/ta' Marsalforn, and where, bereft of the comforts which we now take so much for granted, his grandmother, għaġġlet ghall-bir/biex fih b'rumnell iddendel/ħa jiksaħ bomblu ilma. Yet, as we know all too well by now, Kollox inbidel f'gozz/appartamenti/("għall-kiri / bejgħ) / wieħed fuq l-ieħor kxaxen/ta' gradenzi. On these pages, the simpler world we had once loved and lost may still be found in patches of memory that trace the author's life fil-bjuda tal-inxir/minfuħ mit-Tramuntana, in the riħa ta' qagħaq tal-ħmira and the pumi tal-bibien/jikwu bix-xemx/ ta' waranofsinhar, and the satisfying (you can almost capture that smell of freshly laundered clothes) in bħal naxra ħierġa/mit-togħlija.
The childhood we once knew is keenly observed in ... naqra/ta' tifla b'libsa mżanżna/kollha ċfuf, and ... għall-qligħ ta' sold/it-tfal zgħar kienu jdommu/il-ġiżirani twal/tal-ġiżimin. What were for the majority of the people of these islands the experiences of dwellings and practices of the past, are here rendered in endearing vibrant scenes: riħ frisk żgħażugħ ... iċekċk il-purtieri/tal-qasab mal-bibien/bit-taljoli jistabtu/mal-ħġieġ tal-loġġijiet; il-fjakkli fuq iċ-ċnut, and the inner yard, the pervasive heart of older houses, btieħi ħodor bil-felċi/marsusin fil-qsari/u ġiżimin/fil-laned tal-kunserva. The communal bakeries that dotted both village and town life in times when the idea of community had greater meaning, now remembered only by the older generations, are revisited in ... mill-forn komuni/f'tarf l-isqaq/kien fuq l-irjus f'taħlita/imħawra jibda jfewwaħ/it-tisjir ta' kulħadd.
In all of his published collections, the author's creative timeline delicately captures precious instances of his long and eventful life that would have remained unnoticed and undocumented had the man not also been a poet. His poetic glance, moreover, stretches back in time to the origins of the islands' progenitors when, under an electric sky and the sheltering canopy of a carob tree... hawn l-eqdem wieħed/ta' ġensna mtedd/jingħaqad ħaġa waħda/mal-maħbuba. Cremona, in this volume, his testament of love, becomes one with the objects of his poetic outpouring, aided as ever in this quest, and forever, by his muse, his cherished Beatrice.