MaryCalafato

Calafato was born in Msida in 1953. Her family moved to Australia three months after she was born, returning to Malta in 1966. This was a challenging yet inspiring time, the education system proving to be very different from the Australian one. Being inclined towards poetry and encouraged by her uncle, she started writing poems at a very young age. Calafato worked as a secretary, as well as for KPMG in Libya for a time. In 2001, together with her husband and daughter, she moved to Germany, where the family lived twelve years. Calafato kept on writing and worked as a teacher of English as a foreign language. She now resides in Malta.

Rhythm and rhyme play an important role in Calafato’s work. Her extensive travels have influenced and broadened her interests and choice of subjects. Calafato’s only published work house in limbo (1985) is a collection of thirty-nine poems. There is a lot of the personal here, yet also much of the collective experience, including myth- and culturally-inspired poetry. ‘Stone Goddess’ and ‘Calypso’ both have deep roots in Maltese history and seem to portray our idiosyncrasies clearly and sometimes blatantly, revealing how both sun and water have shaped us, moulded us. Much can be said about poems like ‘The Labyrinth’, ‘We are not Profound People’, ‘Thought for Independence Day’, which berate our acts of disrespect to our own country and people whether through lies and greed, excessive construction, or ignorance.

‘Death of a Virgin’ is a poignant reminder of things lost or left behind, time itself and the duality of womanhood. It makes us question how much we truly know about humans. The scented timber, the grapevine, the coarseness and purity of linen in ‘The Linen Chest’, was dedicated to Calafato’s uncle who was an inspiring figure - the imagery and sensory experience of this poem attesting to this. Then there’s ‘Mother Wears Black’ which is in many ways dedicated to all mothers; she elevates the mundane, everyday tasks and makes them sacred and pure. The mother is the one who does it all, is it all, she is the creatress.

In 2021, Kit Azzopardi revived Calafato’s collection by translating the poems into Maltese under the title dar fil-limbu, with,  as  a bonus, a few previously unpublished poems. These new poems were written during her time in Germany. The poem ‘After Emile Friant’s Douleur’ vividly brings out the different emotions evoked by this painting. ‘The Harrowing’ draws on the cycles of life and the beauty of the fields before and after the harvest – ‘this reaping is your release, / unburdened, barren, brown / and every memory a blur’.

There’s a real sense of charm and effortless sensuality in Calafato’s writing, which while  unassuming remains enthralling. Her writing appeals to our senses, tactile and olfactory – linen and stone, cedar and ash – and our sense of time and space, as she takes us on a journey from one story to another, from ancient history to contemporary events.