The Malta Independent on Sunday
LITERATURE
Remembering Ruzar Briffa
This vigorous opening line from Rużar Briffa’s historic poem
Jum ir-Rebħ takes me back to my secondary school days, when I grudgingly opened my second-hand copy of Qawsalla, an anthology of Maltese literature. What seemed to be a standard school book turned out to be a repository of self-reflective knowledge; fragmented identity given form and made communicable. Briffa’s lines were etched into my memory and I have never managed to discard their persistent echoing.
The encounter with Jum ir-Rebħ was my first recognition that art could be Maltese, or could belong to the Maltese. The eloquence of Briffa’s short poem, its directness and rhythmical force, showed that enslavement was not only enunciated by the neglect of the Maltese national anthem. Enslavement was the act of seeing through another’s eyes. Briffa’s was an active voice. In its clarity and immediacy was a profound personal and collective familiarity, the likes of which could not be expressed by the greatest of foreign poets.
Briffa’s legacy was celebrated last Wednesday evening in Strait Street, the street where Briffa once lived, two days after the anniversary of his birth. A number of people gathered to recite their favourite pieces by the poet, and to discuss what Briffa meant to them and to Maltese literature.
The event was called Poeta fi Strada Stretta/A Poet in Strada Stretta: Rużar Briffa and was organised by the Strada Stretta Concept, held under the auspices of the Valletta 2018 Foundation, in collaboration with a number of entities; the Department of History of Art, Dipartiment tal-Malti, Akkademja tal-Malti, and Għaqda tal-Malti, which was founded by Briffa himself together with Ġużè Bonnici in 1931. The list of readers included Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci, Adrian Grima, Victor Fenech, Jesmond Sharples, Victoria Pisani and Rita Saliba.
Dr. Bernard Micallef’s statement on the importance of Briffa’s work within the development of Maltese literature emphasised the predominant human element in his writings. This was made clear in the selection of poems read during the event. Melancholy, suicide, love, hope incited him to unabashedly pen his innermost thoughts and feelings. Moments of weakness transformed into aesthetics of a resoundingly human dimension.
The poem Ilbieraħ, read by Adrian Grima, was a powerful rendition of despair and the tragic thoughts that enter one’s mind when things seem unceasingly bleak. In it, Briffa expressed that nothing could cure him, not even his faith, leading him to ponder on the prospect of suicide. The lyricism of the poem was ruptured by the line ‘ Ridt naqbeż minn
fuq Hastings’; this reference to a specific place elicited a vivid image of what could have been the site of the author’s death. The power of that image caused the audience to instantly react to its utterance. However, the tragedy of the poem was alleviated by his repetition of the word ilbieraħ, ‘yesterday’, showing that his past difficulties had presently been overcome.
For some, Briffa’s medical profession was a central factor to the analysis of his poems. This aspect of his life emerged most strongly in the poem Vjolin
Marid that linked mortality with creativity in a most poignant manner.
No doubt the harrowing nature of illness can humble even the most conceited of people, but I am always slightly sceptical of such approaches to discussing art. One’s biography unequivocally shapes a person’s experience and hence the translation of that experience in art. The tendency with purely individualised readings is to distract from the artwork itself by giving attention to providing a biographical account of the person. This was not the case in Wednesday’s event; poet and poem were discussed coherently. Nevertheless, it would be significant to give increased thought to a socio-political interpretation of Briffa’s romantic words to deepen the discourse on his art.
Victor Fenech regrettably could not be present, but a segment of his Strait Street memoirs was read to the crowd by Rita Saliba. Fenech also lived in Triq Il-Baħrin, as Briffa refers to it in
Vjolin Marid. His recollections on the characters that coloured Strait Street; the sailors, bar maids, musicians, and on how the street was purposely avoided by certain pedestrians evinced the cultural plurality of Valletta in the twentieth-century.
Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci’s choice of readings interestingly included the poems of those who quoted Briffa or developed upon his work. Carmel Attard’s odes to Briffa conveyed a quasifraternal relationship, like salutations to an old and dear friend. Schembri Bonaci’s own writings expanded upon Jum ir-Rebħ by means of appropriation and juxtaposition. He also included a visual aspect by citing Norbert Attard’s 1980s landscape lithograph series, wherein diminutive figures walk inside the colossal bastion walls of Malta’s fortified cities.
U l-Kotra qamet f’daqqa – It-tikek Norbertjani ngħaqdu u b’għajta waħda – u għajtet bħall full stop sħiħa U l-Kotra għanniet f’daqqa werżqet - u għajtet b’leħen wieħed “Jien Maltija!, Jien Maltija!” u semmgħet ma’ l-irjieħ jiena se nsib is-sabar
Hearing the poetics of Briffa and other writers in Strait Street’s Splendid was a some- what mesmerising experience. The orations resurrected the poet and his art, a reminder of the intensity of his work and of Malta’s cultural heritage. However, this beautiful atmosphere felt ephemeral, as if Briffa existed inside that room and not out on the street below. Dr. Schembri Bonaci concluded by noting how the memory of Maltese literary figures is tainted by destitution; rubbish is always present outside Dun Karm’s Old Bakery Street home; no plaque indicates Briffa’s Strait Street residence. The same could be said about Malta’s visual artists whose works are absented from public view due to the lack of a museum or dedicated space. The excuse of financial limitations is doubtful; new monuments have been commissioned, a six millioneuro carnival village is planned, a handsome sum was spent on a kitsch Christmas crib sent to the Vatican. And what about our significant artists, those who gave us so much to think about, those who gave form to our complex identity? Lest we forget.