On Friday 4th April 2014 I was asked to comment on the poetry of leading Maltese bilingual poet Daniel Massa at an international seminar on “Writing the Mediterranean” at the Valletta Campus hosted by the Department of English in the Faculty of Arts of the University of Malta. This is a two-week Erasmus Intensive Programme held in Malta between 30 March-11 April 2014.
The participating universities are the University of Malta as the co-ordinating university; Goldsmiths College, University of London; University of St Andrews, Scotland; University of Nova Gorica (Slovenia); University of Minho (Braga, Portugal); University of Florence; and University of Cagliari.
In the 90-min morning session I introduced the work of Daniel Massa to the MA and PhD students taking part in the programme and then enjoyed the poet’s reading of a number of his poems either translated into English from the original in Maltese or written originally in English.
In the afternoon 2-hour session, we discussed Daniel Massa’s poetry as a group. The discussion was divided into two main parts: a close reading of “Delimara” and other poems, and reflections on the Mediterranean that emerges from Massa’s poetry.
Prof. Stella Borg Barthet from the Department of English contributed with insights about Prof. Massa’s life and works, both as a writer and as an academic.
adriangrima.org 