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Louis Briffa: Bil-Boqxiex: PoeżijiThe author, 2018 ISBN 978-99957-1-206-8 272pp. Hbk. I think it was Samuel Johnson, in that highly coloured voice of his, who once declared to the open world that “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money”. If tA kind of magic
Louis Briffa: Bil-Boqxiex: PoeżijiThe author, 2018 ISBN 978-99957-1-206-8 272pp. Hbk. I think it was Samuel Johnson, in that highly coloured voice of his, who once declared to the open world that “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money”. If that was true, there would be many more impoverished poets than there are already, especially in our country. At another time, Johnson added, “the only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.” Life, for Johnson, is to be endured rather than enjoyed. That may come very close to Briffa. If not for the money, what does a poet write for? Or why does he write at all? And who does he address? And what does he mean? What is the poet up to? Briffa’s poems raise all these questions and many more. The questions spring like daffodils or crocuses in a prize lawn, as one struggles with a response to the poems. A poem, of course, does not mean: it is. You cannot explain poetry, any more than you can explain a beautifully dusty butterfly blazing with colour over a flowery patch. It is equally so in any work of art, though in aesthetics there can be no absolutes, and contraries there can happily... Read more