Book Review: “Imwejġiet” Antoloġija ta’ poeżiji

Abstract

Every poet has the good fortune of experiencing the utopian moment. It is that instant, preceded by thinking aloud and feeling the resonance in the articulation of an idea which carries him or her beyond the mundane prose of routine. Then, the indescribable instant happens all of a sudden, as W.B. Yeats puts it, “with a click like the closing of a box” and I dare add, like a jewel box. Subsequently, when that utopian moment is, in some degree, shared by the reader, then that indeed is added bonanza. The poems of Alfred Grech in “Imwejġiet” are twinklings, - to borrow the expression of John Stuart Mill – “of feelings confessing themselves to themselves in moments of solitude”. This in itself, and by itself, is an act of fulfilment.