One man’s journey, many travels

Journey

Author: Victor Fenech Artworks: Luciano Micallef Publisher: Horizons ISBN 978-99957-63-91-6

Charles Flores As bilingual Maltese writers go, Victor Fenech is certainly at the top of the crop. He has been at it since way back in the early Sixties, writing poetry and prose that were mostly meant to deliver – and they delivered – a social message, however with a touch of unlabelled romanticism that can sometimes be enigmatically lost on the reader. Why? Very often because of the overwhelming impact from the message that, inevitably, leaves hardly any elbow room for the messenger.

In both his Maltese and English works, Fenech has fashioned for himself a journey, an almost magical mystery tour, to use a Beatles metaphor, few other writers and poets on the local scene, particularly among his contemporaries, have been able to trace out for themselves. For while he has been on this declared journey, the rest can be said to have been on travels that took them elsewhere or, sometimes even nowhere.

I have honestly always believed Victor Fenech is one of the most under-rated poets in Maltese Literature. Not that he has lacked exposure or that his books have been denied the space they deserve on newsagent bookshelves and libraries, but over the many years critics seem to have conveniently, albeit politically (with a little p), overlooked the man’s best output probably by way of avoiding the steeledged reality of the more potent messages in his momentous volume of work.

In this book, Fenech’s poetry and poetic writings reflect both the landscape and the spirit of his people: images of bays, cliffs, temples (“These stones are my DNA” he concludes in “Ħaġar Qim”), forts, towns and villages. He does so without impinging on his “internationalist” appeal, garnered throughout the six-plus decades he has spent writing, as we see in his brilliant “Homage to Lorca”, which offers a fascinating glimpse into the heroic and tragic life of the great Spanish bard and playwright killed by Francisco Franco’s fascists at the beginning of the Spanish civil war, “To Fernando Pessoa”, “Memo on Sylvia Plath”, “Two Bulls in Altamira”, “Woman on Charles Bridge” and “Ramallah”.

Whether in real life or within the restricted poetic capsule that the artist, every artist, has to ride, a man on a journey cannot avoid being captivated by the element of time in our lives. Fenech here is absolutely entrapped in it. He is prepared to wait, but he wants to leave. He wants to arrive, but has never left. He has a destination, but departure remains only a possibility. The effective brevity of his poem “Waiting”, written in Swinging London of 1967, justifies its full reproduction in this short review of the book:

In my life I have waited the arrival Of many trains that never came Or came too late; And I have waited the departure Of many trains that never left Or left too late. One day The train and I will be on time. “Journey” may spotlight several travels, but it is based on such a unique one-way Fenechian ticket that it leaves the reader wanting to set out on his own journey. Possibly imaginary. Frequently illusive. Defenitiely deceptive. It is why Fenech on this “Journey” offers such exciting material, cemented in a mind-set that, like the expanding universe, has no real explanation. The poet feels, but often despairs. He embarks on a lot more journeys, but only one helps him stay the course. He distinguishes between journeying and travelling. We are all travellers, but it is theman on a journey who persists, who thrives, confused, in the world’s ailments, and finds solace in the endless chimes of time and motion.

“Journey” is not the first work Fenech has produced with the balanced support of Luciano Micallef’s artistic ballast. They first worked together in 1979. Micallef’s easy adaptability to poetic vision and the strictures of human emotions must have been the prime mover behind this dual presentation of what the poet wants to say and the artist wants to project – in verse and in art form. Luciano Micallef’s artistic measure helps amplify Fenech’s liberal poetic voice in a way that is gargantuan as much as it sometimes is paradoxical from a third-party perspective. We have here an artistic duel that somehow seems more like an impromptu display of hard-core tango. At once a touch of flamenco, virgin as ever, and a perfect ballet piece.

Thematically challenging, “Journey” offers a remarkable trip to whoever is willing to take it. This Fenech-Micallef tandem can be a joyride as much as it is a colurful fun-fair number for those who are still trying to make of their travels a proper journey to somewhere.