Distances

The Wait till I tell ye blog, a Northern Irish literary journal of sorts, features Maltese poet Adrian Grima:

Adrian Grima was recently invited to Belfast and Israel to read his poetry at international literary events.....Between the Lines Literary Festival....On Friday 9 April 2005, Adrian Grima read his poetry at the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast as part of the weeklong activities of the Between the Lines International Literary Festival organized by poet John Brown. He performed two of his poems, "Distanzi" and "Il-Forma ta' Mhabbtek," translated into English by Maria Grech Ganado, together with the Maltese percussionist Renzo Spiteri who also gave a well-received solo performance. The other writers on the night were Nora Nadjarian (Cyprus),Frederico Zanatta (Italy) and Pavlina Ferfelli (Greece). All four Mediterranean writers were invited to the Belfast festival after their participation in the Klandestini festival held in Malta in November 2004...

Adrian Grima's influences via LauraHird.com:

"I suppose I'm obsessed with producing things. I want to know that at the end of something I've experienced or worked on there will be some kind of tangible memory that stretches mischievously beyond itself. That's probably why I write. I must say that I'm more interested in why others write than why I write. I don't know why. Perhaps it's got something to do with the fact that I don't feature much in what I write. There's always something more interesting happening elsewhere... But I'm aware of my passion for getting things done and even though I squeeze it into these uncanny time corners, writing literature allows me to produce.
I know I'm influenced by people who want to change the world and do so.

One such person is Tonino Perna. Another is Stephanos Stephanides. But there's also Vince Caruana, Eric Van Monckhoven, Adrian Mamo, Nathalie... The thing is I meet interesting people and fascinating projects all the time. Two of the best critics of what I write have been Marco Galea and Nathalie, my wife; more recently Clare Azzopardi, Stanley Borg and Maria Grech Ganado have been very helpful as well. I like the poetry of Kevin MacNeil and Sinead Morrissey and much of what is produced by the writers within Inizjamed. I really enjoyed reading Zadie Smith's "White Teeth" and love Garcia Marquez, of course."