PYROTECHNICS OF THE MIND
The Poetry of Mario Azzopardi
By Grazio Falzon
CONTENTS: --- Anatomy of an Iconoclast --- Chaos and Serendipity --- Political "Engagement" --- Ambivalent Images --- Angst of Being --- Self against Self --- Waiting and Dying --- Paradox of a Conscience --- Curves and Edges --- Female and Feminoid --- Moon, Sea, Bird --- Outsider Elsewhere
ANATOMY OF AN ICONOCLAST
Describing himself variously as: a satanic joke, a seven-headed dragon, Kafka's insect, the image of an eclipse, the word and the darkness of the moment, crazed whiteness, Mario Azzopardi sees himself "revolving in a Chagall dream half-moon half fish." He broods about himself as "the expansion of hell, fireless, wordless." He brands himself as a "guiltless Lucifer."
Azzopardi is the "enfant terrible" of contemporary Maltese poetry. There is no right way for him: he breaks the rules, makes up new rules and breaks his new rules. He is fearless in his attempts to mock tradition or push it to the limits of his passion f or life and passion for words. His poetry is verbal pyrotechnics sprawling in a phantasmagoria of words, images, and rhythms.
In the mid-sixties, the Island of Malta severed ties with the British Crown and achieved independence after 160 years of British colonial rule. Political freedom coincided with a period of internal social upheaval; new socio- economic forces traumatized the new-born nation.
Azzopardi was among the most outspoken activists; he was at the time committed to social and cultural change free from a rigid and asphyxiating tradition. He protested vehemently against an alienated silent majority that had been manipulated far too long by opportunistic political regimes and an ecclesiastical establishment he considered backward and hypocritical. He jolted and shocked Maltese consciousness by his manifestos satirizing popular beliefs and customs.
A non-conformist, Azzopardi was at the vanguard of a crusade for innovative literary forms that were free from Continental influence. He was largely instrumental in bringing about the most radical changes in poetic thinking and composition in modern Maltese literature.
Azzopardi's poetic success, though largely the result of a unique talent, reflects cross-cultural forces and influences. He was exposed and sensitized to contemporary overseas literary trends. He felt a special affinity though with American poets; he con sciously aligned himself with the American ideogrammic stream of poetry, instigated primarily by the Projectivist and Beat poets. He considered the American influence vital for his own experimental mode in poetry.
The Beats erupted into the American literary scene in the late fifties. They rebelled against "square" society and rejected its unimaginative and restrictive modes and ideas.
About a decade later, Azzopardi burst on the island scene in impetuous, rebellious verses. A sort of "drop-out" himself, he readily identified himself with the Beat poets. He was equally intolerant of inhibited social behavior; he denounced bourgeois society and the establishment it represented and helped perpetuate.
In true "beat" fashion, Azzopardi adopted improvised style and synco-pated jazz beat in his poetry. Like jazz players, he favored spontaneity and strident, discordant juxtaposition of subjects.
Azzopardi writes in his native Maltese tongue. Maltese is a fascinating language with an Arabic morphology and a blend of an eclectic vocabulary.
This reflects the geopolitics of the Maltese archipelago. Throughout its centuries-old history, Malta has been occupied by a succession of foreign rulers: the Phoenicians, the Arabs, the French, the Knights of St. John and lastly the British.
Foreign domination has impacted linguistically and culturally the small island, situated as it is at the cross-roads of the Mediterranean basin. Thus the vernacular has absorbed Romance words and further accretions came through cultural interaction especially with the British. In spite of this linguistic influence, Maltese has always adapted such accretions to its own essentially Semitic grammar and mechanics. Like other Semitic languages, Maltese is characterized by a complex b ut rational structure.
Azzopardi exploits and explodes the resources of his native language. Language in his hands flares in nuclear vibrancy. He reinvents Maltese poetic diction.
An early poem "Numru 1100" exemplifies "beat" spontaneous medley of clashing images:
il-fond tal-kafe selahli msarni ruhi tqaghlet b'lehen-qniepen tqal jivvibraw ave marija sterjotipata fuq il-bejt minxura bil-labar tal-ghuda mahruqa b'xemx vjola genitali niexfa mqarqca mpotenti tnin ghajjiena x-xemx u fil-ghaxija nerga' ntiehem kafe velenu u nerga' nibda ndomm kuruna xewqat fiergha. coffee grounds scraped my guts my soul weighed by heavy bells resounding a pat Ave Maria on the roof hanging by wooden pins scorched by a violet sun dried genitals withered impotent a tired sun agonizes and in the evening I taste again infected coffee and start again threading beads of emtpy wishes. ("Number 1100")Azzopardi also transplanted the "field-approach" of projective verse to Maltese literature. He followed the method expounded in the fifties by Charles Olson, chief exponent of the Black Mountain poets.Projective verse is "composition by field." The finished poem corresponds to the natural situation of things and happenings as perceived by the poet. The principle at work behind the process is that, to use Creeley's phrase: "form is never more than an extension of content." Olson describes the poem "kinetically" as "a transference of power." Such composition, he says, involves feeling the poem as "at all points a high-energy construct."
Following Olson's "open form," Azzopardi discarded meter and verse forms in favor of a free placement of lines and phrases over the page. Through this arrangement, the poet conveyed rhythms of thinking and breathing. Working primarily by ear, he suggested the spacing of movements and silence, sweeps of breath and their pauses. The poem became an intellectual and emotional complex held together by a magnetic tension of diverse components.
An azzopardian poem is analogous to a piece of music by Schoenberg where jazz rhythm s, folk melodies and atonal phrases are abruptly juxtaposed:
pala tas-shab tittratieni xemx impotenti bajja tixraq fir-ramel qamar krexxent nofs qalb sakemm int tibda tobghod dix-xemx dal-qamar dit-temperatura perversa tal-karta tas-sema l-ilma jofroh f'sorm il-blat jofroh bis-selha ta' l-obwe bhal ggant b]al centawr fis-sodda ma' qahba u l-ilma jehles sriep tar-raghwa sinjali qodma t'ocejan qadim ("Tliet Movimenti ghal Sinfonija") lingering clouds cleave an impotent sun rustling water across the sandy bay a reluctant crescent moon until you hate this sun this moon perverse temperature charted in heaven water crushing against the rocks spouting like a giant monster a flaying oboe a centaur bedding with a harlot frothing in slithering spume ancient signs of an ancient ocean ("Three Movements for a Symphony")The particulars are inter-related not simply by their proximity but also by the imagination, which can form relationships between the most heterogeneous elements if placed together. Azzopardi wove a poetic tapestry which the reader sees jumbled from the backside. But to the conscious poet it is a private algebra of words and symbols.The meaning of the poem resulted from the co-inherence of the particulars in their mutual interpenetration. This technique is not unlike Cezanne's structuring of one color against another, which the viewer's inward eye harmonizes with the sensations of e xperience.
The juxtapositional mode or ideogrammic method (to use the name given to it by its inventor Ezra Pound) appears as gratuitous heaping of incongruous elements. Indeed, reality itself appears chaotic.
Pound built his poetic theory from Chinese script which is mimetic of nature itself. From this juxtaposition of unconnected things, the Chinese written language can draw more pictures and can thus imply further symbols, concepts, and immaterial relationships.
This "heaping of pictures" is especially important in the case of a language like Maltese, which has relatively fewer terms for abstract or intellectual concepts than other major languages.
CHAOS AND SERENDIPITY
Azzopardian poetry is an enactment of process and structure of nature's own chaotic juxtapositions fused into compactness by the poet's perception. His "poiesis" reveals the oneness of nature, its all-togetherness, its "jewelled net of interconnectednes s" to use Gary Snyder's description.
Behind the unusual contours of Azzopardi's forms there loom primitive shapes and patterns. Azzopardi the poet is a "savage" not according to the meaning given by a pseudo-civilized society, but in a simple earthy sense. The jungle of modern reality serve s this untamed poet as nature did his ancestral neolithic man. His poetry reflects the rugged beauty of cliffs and dark blue water below his hideaway in the north of the Island. His visions are interplays of mediterranean lights and shadows; his sounds are harsh-edged, like rock-music, his emotions are cosmic, elemental, nocturnal.
L-ghabex l-ispjun tas-sieghat tieghi jitfarrdu. Bhal xedaq snien fil-wesghat tax-xemx il-hajt tan-newwieha fejn skarnajt il-holm. Bhal marki sotterranji fejn inkitbu d-dnubiet tieghi lejn il-hlewwa tat-tragedja sekluza fil-mastka tal-genn. Immensa dil-hemda tieghi: lewn it-tracci dekadenti ta' ruh hafja 'mmersa fl'abbissi tar-ramel mhedda mill-pozizzjoni ta' stilel kollhom demm. ("Sighat") Twilight spying my loose hours. Like a jaw in solar expanse the wailing wall where I skinned dreams. My sins etched in caves bitter-sweet laced with madness. Boundless my stillness: the color of decadence barefoot soul submerged in sand threatened by a bloody zodiac. ("Hours")The conceptual basis of Azzopardi's work does not differ markedly from that of French surrealism. Azzopardi is akin to Breton in his agenda: subversion of the existing order and restoration of the rights of the imagination. Both poets aimed at destroying the social man in the individual by liberating imagination, desire, and expression. They believed that truly creative forces are to be looked for in the depth of the irrational self. In his first manifesto of 1924, Breton wrote that surrealism's intentio n was to expose the inner experience of the self free from established criteria be they rational, esthetic or moral.Azzopardi liberated the self from outside reality by demolishing normal and logical relationships between objects words, and images: in doing this he also created a kaleidoscopic surreality of fresh images and associations. He reaches a sphere of universal correspondence where, in Eluard's terms: "tout est comparable a tout." A surreal serendipity floats between the arbitrary and the determined. Azzopardi splashes words like paint on a page, with a passionate delight in the sou nds of words and his consciousness of them. Some of his poems grow on you and continually astonish you once you have entered their boundaries.
In Azzopardi, objects, memories, associations, projections erupt in counterpoint against a reflective structure. The poems cohere densely as reasoned objects of thought. His poetry is a vortex of energies revolving around a calculated center; it is a tor rent of images that propels itself in the free manner of a fugue.
qtar-gharaq ixoqq zibeg f'nofs dezert afrikan u l-metafizika t'arloggi mdendlin mal-blat minutieri bla sahha mitluqa jittewbu elf holma ta' soghba elf hsieb mhux imwettaq u trapjantat l-gharaq mibdul stallattiti... ("Passivita'") sweat trickling beads in African desert and the metaphysics of clocks drooping on rocks minute hands languish yawning a thousand penitent dreams a thousand still-born thoughts and transplanted sweat tensed into stalactites... ("Passivity")POLITICAL "ENGAGEMENT"Azzopardi can be compared to Aime Cesaire for whom surrealism embodied an esthetic and political commitment. It was a medium with which to smash all forms of foreign domination. Cesaire struggled to liberate Martinique "cette ile desesperement obturee a tous les bouts" from French control; Azzopardi dreamed "il-helsien" (freedom) from Britain of a "gens miskin imghattan" (poor downtrodden people).
Both poets attacked the official language that sanctified bourgeois ideas and values in politics and literature. They each considered their respective linguistic hypocrisy as symptomatic of a schizophrenic society, where stated values were poles apart from actual values.
Azzopardi is equally disillusioned and sceptical of political systems. He seems all but lost in an island-world hopelessly manipulated by political forces. He inveighs against the pervasive power of a regime that oppresses and exploits the spirit of its citizens.
The psyche of the poet is inseperable from its intuitions of the nation's psyche. The political conflicts and absurdities are internalized by the poet. The poems register the personal implications of the predatory drives of political leaders, the face-sa ving ruses, the sufferings and ignorance of the little people at the expense of smug upper classes.
The socio-political poetry of Azzopardi is part satire, part diatribe, part dream-vision. He campaigned for a creative patriotic love of mother country. He is caught in a love-hate relationship with his country: "j'art parassita li nishet u nhobb" (paras ite country I curse and love). He is angry and bitter at the civil and ecclesiatical leaders and foreign regimes that took advantage of the Island and its people:
O l-bandi li ppritkalkom kull min kewwes biex jixtrikom fit-turtiera tat-tpartit f'isem Kristu tal-krucjati jew il-ligi tal-padrun. ("Maltija") Oh the proclamations they trumpeted all those who swindled you swapping deals in the name of Christ of the crusades and the law of the ruler ("Maltija")The poet was ready to: "nissallab biex nifdi gens miskin imghattan" (be crucified to save a poor downtrodden people) but the reaction of his own people crushed his spirit. In "Ghanja ta' Settembru" his people:bnew hitan trasparenti bejniethom u bejni w ghaddewni b'mignun put up see-through barriers between us and took me for a madman ("Song of September")The poet's angry political lines of the turbulent sixties have lost their timeliness; but they did rock Maltese consciousness at the time. Azzopardi dismissed and ridiculed his country's historic heritage as irrelevant against the poverty and ignorance o f the people.fuq kull kampnar il-landi mtaqqba tat-tradizzjoni jpanpnu l-assedju tal-elfdisamija... ("Assedju - stil 1967") from every tower tinny clanking of tradition celebrates the 1900 siege... ("Siege - '67 style")Azzopardi's revolt and its stylistic correlatives also parallel those of the "novissimi" literary movement in sixties' Italy. Azzopardi echoes Antonio Porta's criteria of shock and provocation. Both poets break up language patterns and use violent images and discontinuous syntax to produce intensely personal compositions.AMBIVALENT IMAGES
Azzopardi strips away a palimpsest of externally imposed selves in order to uncover a self which turns out to be not the real self but his idealized self. Echoes of secret dimensions of multiple selves trail his poems:
Mela jien il-kelma u d-dlam ta' dal-mument. U l-verb. Jien vjagg. Jien foresta bil-gandotti maqsuma, bi dmugh mhux tieghi. ("Travestija") So I am the word and the darkness of this moment. The verb. I am the journey. The forest beaten with trails, impersonal tears. ("Travesty")Similarly in the poem "Persona", the poet suggests several layers of secret selves:Jien l-immagni ta' l-eklissi. Jien il-kolonja tas-sriep u l-imgiddmin Jien il-hemda ta' dawk li mietu jew l-awra amorfika tal-bjuda mignuna.. I am the image of an eclipse. A colony of snakes and lepers. The stillness of the departed or the formless aura of crazed whitness.. ("Persona")Azzopardi's narcissistic universe is a maze of mirrors that reflects, magnifies, and fragments his image. Like a spider, the poet spins from his own life, and his work glimmers with the tension between disclosure and conceale- ment. He writes candidly but elliptically. The gap between poet and reader becomes a space in which familiarity, awkwardness, estrangement, timidity, honesty, duplicity, darkness, and luminosity all coexist.His language is both hermetic and transparent, exposing and shrouding him simultaneously. His shadows enhance his art. Rent by shafts of light, all his poetry seems lit from within by the tension between the visible and invisible, presence and absence, proximity and distance.
Ir-riha tieghek ghandha riha vjolenti; donnok mara taf tirbah kollox u tidhaq. Hemm rahal jistennieni naqsam pont jistrieh fuq saqajn aghsafar spulpjati. Jekk tasal s'hawn ir-riha taghha tghidulhiex b'das-suwicidju. Lanqas m'ghandkom tghidulha bil-pont. ("Il-Pont") Your perfume reeks of violence; like a woman laughing off her conquests. A village waits for me to cross a bridge resting on legs of gutted birds. If her scent reaches here don't tell her of this suicide. Nor of the bridge. ("The Bridge")There are silences in Azzopardi's poetry. The syntax breaks down, the sentence is suspended. A single word reverberates in the surrounding muteness. The unsaid intrudes in the said. Yet the poet, ever mobile, makes his lines move with a manic intensity.The subtlety of syntax often articulates the curve of a perception or the morphology of an emotion. Unable to confide in the official language, Azzopardi contorts and twists what is given; he coins and borrows words at will. His contrivances are intended to outwit language and impress the establishment.
ANGST OF BEING
Serene sights or pleasureable sounds rarely disturb the serious mood of the poet. Azzopardi's poetry is groping, reflective, saddened.
Issummat l-ugigh interzjat fil-lirika tieghi ("Fl-Ghabex") Dumbstruck pain enmeshed my lyric ("Twilight")The sun rarely illuminates Azzopardi's landscape. Rather, a haunting moon casts a melancholy glow over his mindscapes. Images of dark and night palpitate with enduring pathos:... il-qamar nesa jixghel il-pjaga tieghi mohbija ("Nisa taz-Zerniq") ... the moon left my hidden wound unlit ("Women of Daybreak")Azzopardi's "ugigh" (pain) comes close to the pain experienced by American Confessional poets that flourished in the early and mid-sixties. Although Azzopardi's suffering verges at times on paranoia, it does not reach the extremes of Lowell, Plath, or Se xton.In one of his latest "confessional" poems, Azzopardi is overwhelmed by an unbearable depression:
Ruh tieghi qabar tan-niket x'qed jistona fil-vers notturnali f'dal-habs tieghi assedjat? ("Lunatorju") My soul a tomb of woe what jars in my dark verse trapped in this prison of mine? ("Moon-struck")His anguished poetry has roots in his sensitivity to the human predica-ment. It leads to a sharp sense of the pain of existence under even normal conditions, "where but to think" in Keats's words "is to be full of sorrow."The poet tries to transcend his "purgatorju twil" (enduring suffering) and exorcise the "blat tal-lava jiddewbu" (molten lava-rock) from his head; never-theless, he knows that his poetry "dejjem tnixxi" (constantly oozes) from a heart that "ma fieqet qat t" (never healed).
Azzopardi's sorrow is that of a lyrical existentialist. He is intensely concerned with the condition of the self, its limits, its freedom, its choices, its responsibility, its enduring angst. He feels trapped in his "habs" (prison). He is a man in despai r clinging to nothing. He has hardly any nostalgia either collective or personal; neither is he hopeful of the future. "Tama bla riflessi" (dim hope), he dismisses as a lie:
U jien il-gejjien jistenna l-korp, ta' karba mmensa jew id-daghwa tremenda fl-irrelevanza tax-xita. Fil-vojt. Fin-nuqqas. Fl-indifferenza ta' l-univers it-tifsira tal-genju tieghi traslucenti bhall-genn. ("Nawsja") I am the future about to spawn a boundless groan or an awful blasphemy of senseless rain. The void. Absence. In an indifferent universe my talent translucent like madness. ("Nausea")The poet stands aloof from his world, lost in his freedom. In "Lulluby - to Yevgeny", the poet asks his son never to forget: "Int innifsek u wahdek," (You are yourself and alone), a truth the father has himself lived and is deeply conscious of:... tarmi hwejgek u timxi hiemed u wieqaf, gharwien lest tingazza fil-kesha ta' min jaghzel li jkun wahdu ("Bhall-Poezija") ... throw off your clothes and walk silent erect, naked willing to freeze alone in the cold ("Like Poetry")SELF AGAINST SELFThe poet suffered a Goetterdaemmerung, a twilight of man-made idols. He has lost faith in the gods of his childhood. Now he does not fit in anywhere. He is exiled from the sacred world of fixed values; he has been cast out of paradise and cannot return.
He must choose for himself. He must invent for himself his own meaning. There is no one to provide him with values; he must create them or else he is helpless and forlorn.
In his anger he tries to shock. He "sins" in public. He tries to horrify. He strives to be the "poete maudit;" as such, he can possess a character that is fixed and sacred.
There is: "rigment isus warajh" (an army hounding him), yet:
Hadd ma jintebah bl-immunita' tieghu. L-iskratac ma jinfdux. U l-gebel ma jferix. ("Il-Poeta") No one notices his immunity Bullets do not pierce. Nor do rocks wound. ("The Poet")The poet is determined to shape his life freely; but at the same time he is tormented as he apprehends his freedom and the awesome responsibilities it entails. He sees his life as suspended in his predicament between a past he is bitter about and a future he dreads. The present is "ezistenza ghamja u truxa" (a blind and deaf existence) made up of:mumenti spissi tal-mewt tieghi bla konsum ("Les ombres de l'ete") recurring moments of my undying death. ("Les ombres de l'ete")while the future reduces itself to:il-mewt dghajsa bla qlugh ticcajpar fl-orizzont. ("Mewt Ohra") Death adrift without sails a blur against the horizon. ("Another Death")The way to flee the anguish is to deny the freedom and adopt some form of determinism. In Azzopardi this process takes the form of a fascination and obsession with a variety of symbols. One powerful symbol that the poet adopts is that of stone, "hagar."Stone symbolizes the sartrean "en-soi," the in-itself. Stone is solid, impenetrable, consistent, and simply there. "L-ahjar nibqghu maqfulin fil-gebla" (It's best we remain locked in rock) dreams the poet. He longs for the interiority and the restfulnes s of stone. In "Varjazzjoni," the poet says: "nezisti / mhux immut / x'imkien f'guf il-gebel..." (I exist / not die / in the womb of stone). He longs to identify himself with the "rassa samma" (compacted hardness) and the "dewmien etern" (enduring foreve r) of "hagar." It is an ironic and vain desire. The "en-soi-pour-soi," the in-itself-for-itself is the perfect being, both consciousness and substance. The poet is obsessed by an ideal which in fact is a contradiction. As such, he is condemned to suffer the "diqa l-iktar profonda" (deep-rooted anguish) of an impossible dream.
WAITING AND DYING
For Azzopardi, life is a self-deceiving existence "ta' stennija ghal dejjem" (of endless waiting) and at the same time "imtertra bil-mewt" (shivering with death). Life "tfur bil-mewt" (overflows with death) and draws oppressively toward an inescapable en d, "ix-xejn tax-xejn assolut" (the nothing of utter nothingness):
din l-ezistenza taghfasni w trossni naffar-it-tajr imqatta' mill-karba tar-rih b'nifs hurhara. ("Naffar-il-lejl") this existence clamps me a scarecrow tattered by a wind moaning a death rattle. ("Scarecrow")In his thanatological poems, Azzopardi comes closest to the tragic vision of life. The dark spirit of death lurks behind many an azzopardian composition. Death is an ever watching presence, haunting, implacable, absurd, both fasci- nating and horrifying. It is rarely peaceful. Images of death resemble the ghoulish imaginings of Bosch:u mill-ibghad gherien naghraf iz-zeghir ta' zwiemel morda gejjin ikarkru wrajhom id-dell tal-mewt. ("Sitwazzjoni 32") from distant caves I know the groan of sick horses approaching dragging the shadow of death. ("Situation 32")Death annihilates time, where waiting is the mode of existing, the mode of experiencing the passage of time in its purest form. The poet verbalizes artisti-cally to fill the void of waiting. He furnishes the passage of time by verbal structures of flashb acks and daydreamings. However, his efforts flounder in absence, silence, pain.Azzopardi is conscious of the absurd irony of life; he feels trapped in a time-warp between womb and tomb. Nevertheless, he creates poetically his self, thus transforming his "habs" (prison) into a camusian "royaume."
Time in Azzopardi is not linear and oriented; it is cyclic. Tomorrow is only a replay of today which is already a rerun of yesterday. In "Riflessi" the poet compares truth that unfolds in endless concentric circles to his existence:
gos-shab mahzuza s-sentenza ta' hajti mdewba fic-crieki jduru bla heda dejjem iduru. my life's sentence scrawled in the clouds an existence dissolved in circles orbiting forever. ("Reflections")Elsewhere, in a pessimistic vein, the poet laments the way he has been frittering away his life, existing by formulas, catalogs, and pills:jum wara jum f'dan in-dezert f'dan l-inkubu t'ezistenza ghamja u truxa ("Rari waqaft nahseb") day in day out in this desert a nightmare existence blind and deaf ("Rarely did I stop to think")In "Epika 188" the poet laments that people are ever waiting day in day out, for the great happening,. He finds himself victim of the same predicament:... nistenna nistenna b]al dejjem nistenna bhan-nies t'hemm barra. (Epika 188") ... I wait and wait as always ever waiting as the people out there. ("Epic 188")PARADOX OF A COMSCIENCEReligion, built on a faith "qatt ippruvata" (never proved), cannot provide comfort to Azzopardi. In the somber poem inspired by his father's graveside, the poet ends his meditation by warning not to die for faith:
... dal-misteru bla kulur jibla' kollox u ma jwellidx. ("Addolorata Blues") ... this dreary mystery devours everything and gives no birth. ("Addolorata Blues")Azzopardi's attitude is particularly scathing against structured religion, against values dictated by self-righteous ecclesiastics, and against pious superstitions of the common people "mohhhom g]ar tas-santi" (their mind a grotto of idols) and "saqajha mniggsin" (their infected feet). In a vision of the last judgement the poet composes a grotesque satire of the church's hierarchy about to be judged by a God who:jigbor lil kulhadd ghal dak li haqqu jigbor qassisin bhall-angli romaneski gharwenin bit-trombi f'halqhom u c-crieket maqbudin mal-genitali isqfijiet jifirdu s-shab u jtiru bil-bakli marsusa bejn koxxtejhom papiet libsin t'orakli jnittfu s-suf ta' sidirhom u jaghfsu l-isprej taht abthom ("Ir-ragel li ma felahx jishar") summons all to their due priests like romanesque angels blowing trumpets naked rings grasping genitals bishops parting clouds aloft clutching crosiers between their thighs popes costumed like oracles plucking hair from their chest spraying thier underarms ("The man who couldn't watch"Azzopardi rails against the forces of organized religion that have forged him. On the occasion of his 24th birthday, the poet blows out symbolic candles of Church indoctrination:dawn huma x-xemghat li bellawli oppju niexef u saddewli halqi bil-biza' tal-mistoqsija din ix-xema' fiha riha ta' mikrofni fuq il-pulptu jghajtu mitologija mistika minghajr konvinzjoni ("24 xema' f'gieh il-poeta f'gheluq snienu") there the candles that conned opium on me and shut me up scared to ask this one smells of pulpit microphones yelling mystical myths unconvincing ("24 Candles for the poet's birthday")In "Orbita 12" the poet longs to take off in the beyond and drift faraway from cupolas erected in honor of "vangeli morda" (sick gospels). The poet refuses to compromise with "allat bla fattizzi" (faceless gods) and decries "it-tort ta' l-allat imniggsi n" (the evil of infected gods). He is sceptical about a priest-fabricated God that:... hu l-assenza tal-ward meta int tixtieqhom l-iktar. Ma jkellmikx lanqas meta ddeffisslu l-isbah fjura fil-kustat miftuh. ("Meta taqta' l-fjuri") ... is absent roses the ones you crave most. He won't talk to you not even if you stuff the prettiest flower in His open side. ("When you pick flowers")He views Christ and His redemption in an equally stinging imagery:... il-kurcifiss ta' fuq is-sodda jittewweb in-naghas u n-noja ta'redenzjoni bla siwi. ("Meta jitbaxxa d-dawl") ... the crucifix over the bed yawns sleepy and weary of a useless redemption. ("When the light is dimmed")After the unspeakable loss of two of his children within a three-week period, the poet, in a moment of utter grief, rejects the offer of grace:u mill-ghanqbuta ta' smewwiet ghajjiena alla mejjet-haj inewwel idu 'l isfel 'l isfel jilghab l-ego sum u jien ma nahtafhiex ("Sa l-ghanja tinxef") from the cobweb of a weary heaven a living-dead god reaches his hand down, down playing the ego sum that I refuse ("Even the song withers)Some of Azzopardi's lines seem to be blasphemous. On closer study, one senses his interior turmoil of an essentially God-haunted mind in search of lucidity and coherence. Behind the poet's tantrums against priests, dogmas, and God, there lurks a prodigious complex rooted in a childhood indoctrinated about sin and guilt. No wonder that in the poem "Skerzo" he sees himself as: "massa t'energija skrupluza" (an energy seething scruples).Hounded by inner voices, the poet wavers between prayer and blasphemy, belief and agnosticism. He longs to unburden his conscience from the "piz tad-dnub" (baggage of sin) and heal the "wegghat antiki" (long-enduring pains) that throb inside his brain. D eeply conscious of "rezonanzi mwahhlin mal-kuxjenza" (resonance melded with conscience) he feels he is "l-iskerz indemonjat" (Satanic joke) and indeed "l-espansjoni tal-infern" (hell's expansion).
In a rare penitential mood of humility and contrition, he turns, uncharacter-istically, to God and prays:
dewwibli mohhi meta s-sigra tas-suppervja tkun riflessa f'ghajnejja ccajparli d-dinjita' ta' min jaf jitbikkem wahdu. ("Preghiera") dissolve my brain when the tree of arrogance shows in my eyes blurs my dignity dumbfounded alone ("Prayer")Along his tormented itinerary, the poet enters "il-lejl oskur" (the dark night) of the soul. In his poem "Askesis," Azzopardi evokes the "noche oscura de l'alma" of San Juan de la Cruz in his search for a mystical union with God. The mediaeval saint expe rienced the dark night of the soul caused by the painful consciousness of human limitations and the apparent absence of God. Azzopardi's night of the spirit is an existential reaction to: "il-malinkonija tragika" (woes and tragedy) he collected from the l and of "ihirsa l-qodma" (ancient spirits). He feels:Nifsi kongestat bin-negritudni, imtaqqal b'miti kuluriti li gannatt matul il-vjagg. My lungs clog with blackness. multi-colored myths patched along my journey.And on the verge of disbelief, he is saved from utter faithlessness by an inner voice of conscience:Ridt nikkommetti gest anjostku b'ghajnejja blalen tas-sadid u l-kuxjenza ma hallitnix. I wanted to be faithless my eyes balls of rust my conscience balks.He goes looking for God. "Barrani" (an outsider) he enters barefoot in a cathedral:bin-navi toghma t'umdu, kaverni tremendi jahbu 'l Alla. cavernous damp aisles hiding God.In spite of his mocking attitude toward the Church, the poet appreciates the symbolic visuals of church liturgy that have punctuated his impressionable young years. Cross, fire, chalice, rosary, nails, baptism, sin, stain, rite, cemetery, blood, ashes, heaven and countless other religious images and references recur throughout the poet's oeuvre. They enrich significantly the dynamics of azzo-pardian vision and art. Ironically, use of religious imagery presents a vital union not with God, b ut with earthly things.Azzopardi cannot altogether forgo a belief in a supreme being, a principle of universal cohesiveness. In his latest works he turns increasingly to symbols and images from oriental philosophies and religions. He is eclectic in his interests; he will exper iment with any spiritual or philosophical idea with which he identifies or which responds to his present mood.
CURVES AND EDGES
Looking at the spectrum of Azzopardi's thematic preoccupations, one is struck by the poet's interest in geometric patterns and physical configurations. The poet's fascination with contours reflects his consciousness of an object or event that is most tru ly revealed only at the border of its outline or form.
The poet perceives harmony as having a three-sided form:
caghakiet keshin silg f'metamorfosi trijanglu t'armonija tlehh bl-impatt tal-verita'. ("Bidla") icy pebbles in metamorphosis a triangle of equilibrium flashes on impact of truth. ("Change")And truth itself:tintefah titwassa fi crieki eterni jduru bla razan ("Riflessi") unfolds in endless concentric circles untamed ("Reflections")In "Ghaxar Varjazzjonijiet fuq l-Imhabba," a woman fashions patiently a new face to mask the sorrowful look of her lover and:c-ceda tieghu tinbala' fit-tama koncentrika t'ghajnejha tal-qastan his surrender twirled in the concentric hope of her chestnut eyes ("Ten Variations on Love")The circular form, "it-tond" appeals intensely to the poet. Psychological roots are at the root of Azzopardi's attraction to "is-simmetrija tac-cirku" (the symmetry of the circle). The circle is the symbol of the self; it expresses the totality of the ps yche in all its aspects. The circle symbolizes the ultimate wholeness of life, whether it appears in primitive sun worship, or modern religions, in myths, in Aztec art, in Maya "piedra del sol," in mandalas drawn by Tibetan monks.The mandala is the magic circle symbolic of the transcendent self, encompassing all sides of man's nature and forging opposing forces into a unity. In the poem by the same name of "Mandala," Azzopardi communes not with an anthropomorphic deity, but with "il-milja tal-vojt tond," (the plenitude of circular void) the inexhaustible flow of a timeless cosmic configuration. In a fusion of Christian and Buddhist imagery, the poet is drawn as if by a spell to a "sagrament tal-holm" (a sagrament of dreams):
U kien hemm wesgha tonda lesta tilqa' dal-kwadranglu minn gos-shab. A round expanse welcomed the quadrangle from the sky.But after the celestial spectacle, the poet is disenchanted; he cannot believe wholeheartedly, and typically spurns the oriental ritual:Miljun sena u sebgha l-istess holma. L-istess spazji l-istess tond frustrat. The selfsame dream of a thousand and one years. the same spaces the same impossible round.FEMALE AND FEMINOIDThe eternal female figure - das Ewig-Weibliche - truly dominates the azzopardian cosmos in myriad and subtle ways. The frequency and importance of females in the poet's work is nothing short of extraordinary. Females are ubiquitous; they are phantasized about, lusted after, violated, loved, abandoned, and never forgotten.
Azzopardi's heroines are akin to his own existence devoid of absolute values. They complement and exemplify the poet's ethic of fullness of life. They are victims, sinners, outsiders, outcasts. Yet, they are at the same time innocent and free, exuding mystery and fascination.
Azzopardi is irresistibly drawn to these: "Nisa li habbewni f'purcissjoni" (a parade of lovers). He is on their trail throughout his poetic wanderings; he seeks them out in the hope of an intimate relationship. The meetings turn out to be apparent chance s; the potential companionship is characteristically, doomed to fail. The female he craves is elusive and somehow unattainable. Love, like God, remains a mirage beyond his grasp. A stanza in one of his poems pours out his disillusionment:
L-istrofi tieghi l-ucuh tan-nisa mitwija fuq iz-zkuk u l-qamar jiksah fl-ghadira. ("Mewt ohra") My stanzas faces of women wrapped around tree trunks a moon frozen in a pool. ("Another death")Females in Azzopardi's poetry are like apparitions that flash and soon vanish but that shimmer on long after in the inward eye. All that lingers on the page is a sensual image of a mysterious absence. The passage of a woman is transmuted into reverberations of dream and desolation, reminiscent of Rene Char's "le silence de celle qui laisse rever." A woman the poet noticed one evening remains an erotic image in the mind:il-mara krepuskulata f'ghajnejh u f'rasu sidirha ("Les Images") the twilight woman in his eyes her bosom in his head ("Les Images")Elsewhere, the poet is bewitched at the sight of a female undressing and about to swim nude under cover of night. The poet falls in love with the vision, but:taht il-harsa 'nfinita tar-ragel li habbha it-tfajla ta' l-adrijatiku dabet f'dell bla gometrija. ("Ghaxar varjazzjonijiet fuq l-imhabba) under the infinite look of her lover the girl from the Adriatic melted away in formless shadow. ("Ten variations on love")Azzopardi's torment of the unattainable loved-one echoes Pablo Neruda's own despair in "Poesia XV":y me oyes desde lejos y mi voz no te toca y me oyes desde lejos y mi voz ne te alcanzaand the exasperation of desire recalls Goethe in "Xenien," extolling "das Gift der unbefriedigten Liebe" which burns and cools.In Azzopardi's situation, the male-female space is
hardly ever a bridge of exchange, or "un espace translucide" to use Paul Eluard's terms. Reciprocal "visibilite" is inextricably bound-up with Eluardian love. The act of seeing across a transparent m ilieu is the means par excellence to communicate and share love. In the case of Azzopardi, the male-female space seems to remain an infertile chasm. Is Azzopardi's experience a metaphor for the difficulty of relating with another person and for the imposs ibility of love?Many a poem tinged with pathos evokes a loved-one in an inaccessible beyond, forever distant. In "It-tfajla tal-muntanja" ("The girl from the mountain"), the poet abandoned the stranger and promised her he would love her, character- istically, from a distance: "Se nibqa' nhobbok kif naf jien mill-boghod" (I'll love you in my own way from afar). After another encounter with another young woman, he finds himself alone, pining after an absent voice: "nibqa' wahdi nisma' lehnek" (I remai n alone listening to your voice).
Erotic images of female hair, eyes, breasts, thighs, link these nameless and enshrined loved-ones with: night, sea, moon, heaven.
Kienet safja malli rajtha tholl xuxitha tinza nuda fuq il-blat. U saret lejl u saret bahar xtaqt nintreha mmut f'gisimha. ("Trinoctium Castitas") She gleamed fair undoing her hair undressing naked by the rocks. She became night she became sea my desire to sink in her. ("Trinoctium Castitas")Through temporal and spatial separation the women the poet loves meld sensuously with images of earth. The persistence of his doomed loves echoes the Eluardian "harmonie de l'absence" in which loss fashions images more intense than physical presence. Thu s in "Bahrija" the poet relishes that:illum ghandi lura xufftejja u ruhi tieghi biss u nara kemm hu sabih li niftakrek biss bla rridek wisq. My lips my soul I have back mine alone your chaste memory is bliss.The sensual lyric "Kannizzata" ("Trellis") unveils yet another nameless female but leaves her all her mystery and intangibility. The voyeur eyes of the poet net their prey through a latticed space:Minn gos-slaleb tal-kannizzata nizlet mara mnezzgha bhall-ilma Through the trellis I spied a woman naked as waterTransfigured in marine transparency, the female enlarges the contours of the poet's imagination. Nevertheless:... f'ruhha mera lmaht kull genna t'art li tlift kull ciklu solitudni li ghazilt minflok min habbni ... her soul paradise abjured solitude preferred to my loveThe encounter reduces itself to a one-sided gaze. The vision fades out and the poem trails off in silence.Besides considering a female as potential love-mate, the poet is conscious of woman as the yin force, symbolizing warmth, fertility, darkness, mystery.
The poet associates the female figure with elemental matter and natural phenomena. Water and land become feminoid: "... saret lejl u saret bahar" (... she became night, she became sea). Twilight, clouds, seasons, time, life revolve subtly around the female figure: "fl-ghabex t'ghajnejk" (your twilight eyes) and "il-harifa ta' qalbek" (your autumn heart).
The image of "ghar" (cave) and its many metaphoric variations such as: grotto, catacomb, grave, well, den, pond, sarcophagus, tabernacle reverberate in Azzopardi's poetry with subconscious intimations of a gynecoid space, an enclosed space that is alive with lurking presences, secret energies, and mysterious sexuality that haunts the Mediterranean psyche. In "Fjuri minn rasha," a sinister drama of sadism and necrophilia leaves the poet in anguish:
liema kewkba se tahfer l-ghaxar gradi ta' dnubi? fl-ghar tac-caghak gannatthom b'logka kkalkulata kif ghallmitni l-irgulija what star will pardon the ten points of my sin? in the shingled cave I wove them deliberately logically as my manliness dictated ("Requiescat")And in "Sighat," the poet confesses "b]al marki sotterranji fejn inkitbu d-dnubiet tieghi" (my sins etched in caves). In "Hoss polz idi," the woman-mother asks the poet: "fittixni fid-dlam tal-gherien" (look for me in dark caves). And in "Jekk il-fjuri gh adhom ma tbilux," the poet is asked:ersaq bla hoss ha tisma' l-ghana tal-vergni tal-qedem maqful go l-gherien. come close be quiet and listen to the chants of ancient virgins locked in caves. ("If the flowers haven't wilted")Fire, a prime transformative element is associated with feminine inward-ness; it is also related to the capacity for reverie which is implicit in most of Azzopardi's women.The principle of nature inherent in the female ties to the pain of becoming and dying. The female principle stands for sorrow, but also the peace of the grave, "diraghajha cimiteru" (her arms a graveyard).
The plethora of images and symbols emanating from nature distills the essence of woman and transforms it into a myth of femininity. This acts like a deep reservoir of creative mystery for the poet.
According to Jungian psychology, the "anima", which is the feminine constituent of the male psyche, suggests an interiorizing movement toward private sensibility. In this introspective role, the feminine orientation is at the basis of Azzopardi's artisti c approach; it becomes the cornerstone of his consciousness. The "anima" feminizes the poet's experience of reality and his interpretation of it.
The focus of Azzopardi's femininity is anarchistic, liberating, creative. His art revolves upon an unceasing unwillingness to allow ossification of a fixed center or rigid boundaries. The poet's very surrealism and juxtapositional style point to a femini ne orientation, a mind unshackled by absolutes and systems. The poet creates personal stories. The non-sacred aspects of such tales is also closer to the poet's feminine bent than the religious or ideological nature of collective myths.
The act of composition itself becomes a kind of epiphany. For Azzopardi the writing of a poem becomes a means of empathetically experiencing an alternate mode of consciousness. The poem becomes a sublimation of Baude-laire's "femme fatalement suggestive" : an aesthetic female counterpart and her lover, the poet who desires her, are enclosed vicariously together within the space of the written poem. This perhaps accounts for the unique passion and intensity that characterize Azzopardi's work.
MOON, SEA, BIRD
A host of other figures recur with unusual psychic resonance throughout Azzopardi's poetry. Among the more significant figures are: moon, sea, and bird.
The moon dominates Azzopardian cosmology; it communicates a variety of images and associations. The moon's presence adds a surreal, mysterious, or sensual dimension to the drama enacted in the poem.
In an eerie poem, the poet hopes that a full moon would witness a nocturnal ritual by the bay:
il-lejla jmissu jitla' qamar kwinta taht il-harsa hamra tieghu ]a tohrog l-armla maghluba b'uliedha suddjakni jsawtu l-ilma bil-qasab tal-gnejna taht dal-qamar hallu l-mara tintelaq ghat-traxxix forsi tindaf bla tixtieq iehor ihabbilha ("Wara nofs inhar fil-bajja") tonight a full moon under its scarlet stare a skinny widow comes with her subdeacon children beating the water with reeds moonlit leave the woman in the spray maybe she'll cleanse herself and not desire another man's seed ("At Gnejna in the afternoon")In the nightmarish poem "Il-lejla l-qamar qed jitwerrec," the poet, impersonating a living-corpse in a glass-coffin, shocks the moon:il-qamar qed jinghi dmugh id-demm u d-dwiefer ta' zkuk is-sigar qed icarrtu imbiccer il-firmament u l-weraq isfar qed jinghasar u l-wurdien sajfi selah gwinhajh ihabbat mal-ghatu fuq wicci the moon is wailing tears of blood clawed limbs are slashing a savaged firmament yellow foliage is squeezed cockroaches mangle their wings beating against the lid over my face ("Tonight a cross-eyed moon")Elsewhere, the moon is personified as the main protagonist that metamorphosizes the poet:kien il-qamar li bbalzma lir-ruh wara s-sahra tat-taqliba kien il-qamar li welled it-tama ta' jiem li ma bsartx kien il-qamar b'dijjitu tal-fosfru li xeghelni kadavru jiccaqlaq mill-gdid kien il-qamar li nefah [o vini stimmati u nebbah ix-xefaq qarib ta'g[ustizzja li taghder li tifhem li tizen li taf ("Varjazzjoni ohra" a moon embalmed my soul after the wake a moon bore hope of unexpected days a moon phosphorescent me a cadaver stirring again a moon blew up stigmatized veins and inspired peripheral justice sympathetic understanding weighing knowing ("Another Variation")When the moon disappears, darkness conspires with night. In "Leggenda," ("Legend") a young woman, "b'kawtiela skura trid tisfida l-lejl" (a dark will to defy the night), ends up surrendering her body to a wintry night. The woman in "Lapida" ("Tombstone") recalls many a night for she had become the night and "il-le jl kien jafha sewwa" (night knew her well). Elsewhere, in an erotic sequence, a nameless woman:nizlet g]all-ilma sabiha daqs il-lejl u l-lampi tal-genna ntfew sabiex tghum nuda. ("Ghaxar varjazzjonijiet fuq l-imhabba") she went down to the water beautiful as the night and heaven's lights dimmed as she swam naked. ("Ten variations on love")The sky is mostly an awesome element where a "temperatura perversa" (perverse temperature) is charted; where there is "mahzuza s-sentenza ta' hajti" (my life's sentence is scrawled) and where clouds drift "jisfolja mewt war'ohra" (peeling one death after another).The sky is a "bahh ta' wesghat" (infinite expanse) recalling the "espaces infinis" of Pascal. The immensity of space "bla hjiel ta' dijametru" (boundless) intensifies the immense solitude of the mind and dwarfs the ego to "ix-xejn" (nothingness).
On rare occasions the sky can be an exhilirating sensation as in the opening lines of "Vjagg":
f'imnifsejja hlewwiet is-saghtar hekk kif il-lozor tal-harir jithallew jaqghu jitmewgu pezez mahlula mis-sema I inhale seet thyme blue sheets unfold from the sky undulating silk ("Journey")For Azzopardi, the sea is an archetypal element. It is a metaphor in which varied facets and moods merge. The sea is an image of the flowing unity of the cosmos. It is an ever-receding horizon; it is the infinite, timeless beyond. The sea is alive with s pirits. It connotes sensual and erotic images. It is a symbol of the unconscious life of the self. It is the primal source, the womb of life.The sea can also be a tragic tomb. In "Marinara," a nameless fisherman died on the water, unwept, unremembered. And in a cosmic requiem:
il-gawwi sallab karba mal-lejl l-istilel ghattew wicchom u l-ilma kellu l-ghatx u l-bahar hassu jeghreq seagulls squawked across the night stars hid their faces water thirsted and the sea choked ("Marine")The poet wonders in "Epifanija" how many oarsmen "issallbu mas-sigar taht l-ilma" (crucified underwater) or where their people rowed "meta stadu l-qamar tar-rizurezzjoni" (when they fished the moon of resurrection).In the poem "Ghaddom waslu l-angli" (An gels will be here any moment) water nymphs collected the bones of "kull xebba li salpat wahedha" (solitary women who sailed away).The bird is a haunting image in Azzopardi's universe. In "Nikta" a blind pigeon is found shot dead. A cry of a bereaved mate rends the sky:
romol il-lehen tat-tajra maqbud fuq l-ishab afflittat lehen bla vuci. a bereaved song grieved the clouds. a voiceless song. ("Sadness")Elsewhere, a sick dove "tferfer [winhejha misluha / tokrob l-ennui taghna." (flutters its wings bruised / coos our ennui). Seagulls "sallab karba mal-lejl" (squawked across the night) mourning a nameless seaman who died forsaken on the water. In the poem "Talba ta' fil-ghaxija," the poet identifies with the nightingale:ikanta ghalxejn g]as-silg bla tama. sings to no avail to snow without hope. ("Evening prayer")In the memorable poem "Paesagg 2," birds caught in a wire trap shatter the night sky with their shrieks:il-lejl imtedd minn tulu fuq l-eghlieqi u maqbudin mill-[wienah l-aghsafar xaffru d-dlam ighajtu mill-ingassa tal-wajar. the night spread across the fields and caught by their wings in a wire trap the birds shrieked piercing the darkness. ("Landscape 2")The heart-rending cry of the bird in Azzopardi's poetry desecrates the Rilkean "cri rond d'oiseau" in which "tout vient docilement se ranger." Is then the shriek of the bird a metaphoric intimation of the horror of the void, the "xejn tax-xejn," the utte r nothingness that threatens to submerge the human? Or is it emblematic of man's existential predicament, his freedom, with its preciousness, its vulnerability, and its ineffable anguish?OUTSIDER ELSEWHERE
As an inhabitant of a small island the poet is very conscious of the surrounding sea that isolates him and confines him linguistically if not culturally. Consequently the thematic motif of "evasion" is inherent in his work. Wandering beyond the shores of the island expands the poet's world. His peregrinations overseas punctuate his poetry and add an exotic dimension to his creations. Nevertheless, the "elsewhere" becomes only another experience of loneliness and sadness. Wherever the poet escapes, he dra gs his malaise with him.
Paris, the city of light and life, becomes a soulless wasteland for the poet craving female companionship:
Jien l-aridita' li qed tnixxef dil-belt: l-id ingazzata tal-lejl minghajr is-sider tax-xebba ("Notre Dame") I am aridity of this city ice-cold hand in the night bereft of female bosom ("Notre Dame")Venice is to the poet nothing but "cimiteru ta' gondli" (a graveyard of gondolas). Prague is a "belt tad-dmugh" (city of tears) and "pjazzi mbikkma" (dumbfounded piazzas). In Budapest, the poet feels his soul "ingazzata" (ice-cold) in a city where: "xemx tal-bronz / irhiet mewt" (a sun of bronze / shed death).Near the train station in Berlin, the poet is struck and distressed by:
wiccha abjad in-nies ftit tintebah bid-differenzi ta' bejnietna ... jien ukoll wi`cci abjad bhalhom. ("Bahnhofstrasse") chalk-faced people unaware of our differences ... I too chalk-faced. ("Bahnhofstrasse)The enchanting isle of Capri becomes a memory of a fleeting sight of a Scandinavian blond with green eyes drifting against masses of tourists, their eyes "iteptpu l-krizi ta' jiemhom maghduda" (blinking with the crisis of their numbered days). In London' West End, a cellist plays "f'muzew elettrikat ta' mejtin jimxu" (in an electrified museum of ambulatory corpses). From London's Kensington Gardens, the poet retains a Fellinesque snapshot of: "fuq is-siment ghajnejn il-hut ta' l-ilma helu / jiccassaw rig or mortis" (on the concrete, eyes of fresh water fish / stare in rigor mortis).After wandering across the capitals of Europe, the poet like a modern version of Don Quixote, confesses his sense of disenchantment and interior desolation:
gbart hafna frak u ruhi saret katalgu ta' nies bla fattizzi. ("Tao Te Cing") I collected many fragments my soul a catalog of faceless human. ("Tao Te Cing")The poet escapes from his insular microcosm ever seeking to free his self "prigunier tal-verita'" (captive of truth) and his conscience "fgata fl-alka" (choked with algae). His quest is futile; it is vitiated by an enduring "malinkonija tragika" (tragic depression).Ultimately, the creation of the poem itself seems to provide a cathartic release for the poet's neurosis. Poetry affords access to the interior faraway of the unconscious where the poet is reborn as his instinctive and passionate self. .
Encounter with Azzopardi's rebellious mind may be troubling. His poetry accomplishes what it aims to do: to subvert our commonsense and complac-encies, to challenge our imagination, to share the visions of a tormented mind, to remind us that life begins, in the phrase of Sartre, "de l'autre cote du desespoir."
(Copyright © 1995 Grazio Falzon)