'Vers-I'

Author: Jo Naudi

Publisher: Self-published / 2024

Pages: 51

In a small community like Malta, it's not uncommon to find yourself invited to judge something created by a friend or acquaintance.

Long, long years ago the author of this slim book of poems was near, well on the fringe to be specific, of a group of young people who used to gather every Sunday to sing at the Folkmass held at the Little Sisters of the Poor for the elderly in Hamrun.

The author was a quiet, serious young man then, easily missed among the more vocal of his friends. I have no doubt he is still the same today.

It is after going through the 40-ish poems in this well-produced book that one concludes the author's main characteristic is the feeling of loneliness.

Fellow poet Gorg Mallia calls the author "the singer of loneliness".

Just to give some examples, here is one in which the poet mourns his solitude:

F'toroq mimlija slaleb

Jien wahdi spiss imxejt

Waqtiet hienja jew koroh

Jien wahdi fraht u bkejt

Roughly translated to: In roads full of trouble, often I travelled happy or bad times, all alone I rejoiced and I wept.

Or this:

Imxejt fis-skiet, fil-kwiet wahdieni

Kont jien mitluf, inhuf hsieb gieni

Ma' hadd ma stajt jien naqbel

Lil hadd ma stajt jien nifhem.

Roughly translated to: I walked in silence, lost in one's thought - I came to understand that I could not agree with anybody, I could not understand anybody.

By the end of the book the author seems to have found a companion and he now speaks in the plural:

Irzahna fuq l-irdumijiet

U hassejna t-tnejn

Il-qawwa tal-Grigal

U tlabnieh it-tnejn

Jehodna mieghu

U xtaqna t-tnejn

Nintelqu mal-mewg gholi

U nibilghu it-tnejn

Ir-raghwa li thossu jifgak

Ghalxejn ..

Il-mishuta poezija

Zammitna t-tnejn

'Il boghod mill-irdumijiet,

Xejnet il-Grigal,

Mellset il-mewg

U hallietna t-tnejn

Bit-toghma tar-raghwa

Wehidna maghha...hekk...bhal dejjem.

Roughly translated to: We froze on the cliffs and we both felt the strength of the Gregale and we both pleaded with it to take us with it and we both wished to be swept away by the high waves and to swallow the foam that you feel is strangling you.