Gibraltar - More Poetry from Gabriel Moreno

 

March blew in pretty wild and wet, but I have been on a roll with reading works by Gibraltarian writers and kept up the momentum with Gibraltar, a new collection of poems by Gabriel Moreno. I picked up my copy in person at his launch gig in El Kasbah in Gibraltar at the end of February, a vastly enjoyable night where we were treated to his poetry and music, and a special appearance was made by Morag  Butler, all the way from the folklore scene in Kent. An absolute treat.

Morag Butler at El Kasbah, February 2026

I read Gibraltar quickly, in one afternoon. Then I took it on my travels to UK and read it in a more leisurely way, indulging in the lines of poetry, reading the poems out loud in the three languages used and probing at the layers of meaning. These poems resonate. Perhaps it's because I'm a llanita, no se, but I think it's because good poetry is resonant anyway. 

Of course, before I read the poems, I'd heard many of them, read out loud both by Gabriel Moreno and by his translator and publisher, founder of Goat Star Publishing, Rafael Peñas Cruz. This is how poetry is at its most vibrant: read aloud in the voice of the author, with the accents, and intonations and emphases all in the right places, where they are meant to be. It is the llanito accent, the traces of andalusian, that I think bring these poems fully alive, that give them an authenticity that lingers with you long after the moment has moved on. The English language poems are strong, with powerful, lasting images, and the same can be said of the Spanish. In fact, I think I need to also point out that the translations into Spanish are worthy poems in themselves and nothing is lost in translation here. I particularly liked the tenth poem in the first section of the book, the reflections of Gibraltar:

"I favoured ones where you waltzed,

where the smell of bay leaves mixed

with English ale and Moroccan spices

wreathed the crest of our thinking."

"Preferí aquellos donde bailabas un vals,

donde el aroma a laurel se mezclaba

con cerveza inglesa y especies maroquíes

coronando las crestas de nuestro pensamiento."

My favourite were the Llanito sonnets. What began as a response to a challenge that llanito cannot be moulded into a formal poetic structure born of another language, has resulted in sonnets that have torn up the rule book of colonial control. English is the language that was foisted on our ancestors and which we had no real choice but to learn to speak, but we have developed from this and from the many tongues that our people have spoken in our past and grown our own language, on our own soil. They joy of these sonnets is not only in the games that the poet has played with language, but with the shaping of a Gibraltarian meaning, using Gibraltarian language from an English formal poetic structure. There is a beautiful rebellion in this that brought me utter joy.

And then, of course, there was the language of the sonnets, the contemplation of uniquely Gibraltarian themes and landscapes, like the smuggling of Marlboro Man, the walking through the border in La Frontera, the relationships of a youth spent in the Gibraltarian beaches and bars as in The Inheritance, and Fling del Verano. 

I imagine a particular challenge must have been how to write a language that has no standard written form. I stumbled over the word "vrada" until I said it out loud several times and the penny dropped. If this is the case, then Moreno's talent burgeons further, demonstrating a mastery of form and language that I think is probably born of his ear for music and how words sound together. The Llanito Sonnets in this selection work well and fall so easily from the lips that the talent and effort they took to write could easily be underestimated. I would ask the reader not to fall into that trap: what is easiest to read is often the hardest to write.

The book moves on to a selection of new poetry, pondering broader themes, such as relationships, humanity itself, and of course, poetry. Moreno is expressing his thinking processes, some of them complex, in his poems and this offers up to readers the chance to plunge into our own thinking. This is what poetry does best, I think, have us explore our own thinking. Or, as he says in Epistola ad Pistones:

 

"It's all butterflies

innit? Every song

is a chance 

for the dreamer 

in the cave

to imagine

a more benevolent

field."

This is not the place for an in-depth analysis of this collection of poems, nor am I one skilled enough to do justice to them anyway, but I do sense the literary import of this work and the valuable contribution it makes to Gibraltarian literature, or, as Rafael Peñas Cruz puts it in his prologue:

"But a culture is nothing without poets, for it is only they who ultimately give shape to that immaterial set of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, and ways of life peculiar to a certain group of people in a certain space at a certain point in time."

If you haven't got a copy, click the link below and order one now. En serio, este libro hay que leerlo.

Gibraltar by Gabriel Moreno

Gabriel Moreno, troubadour, at El Kasbah, February 2026

Gibraltar, Keats and Hampstead Heath

 

Keats House on World Book Day 2026

It's something unexpected to find a piece of Gibraltar in Hampstead Heath, that little, somewhat exclusive, quintessentially English piece of London. It was also unexpected for it to be so warm and sunny on that March afternoon that I was down to t-shirt and jeans and wishing I'd worn sandals instead of trainers and that I'd left my jacket at home.

On 23rd March this year, World Book Day, I managed to get hold of a couple of tickets to attend a poetry salon at Keats' House. The famous Romantic poet, John Keats, had lived there from about 1818 to 1820. It was at this rather lovely house that Keats wrote Ode to a Nightingale, the subject of rather frustrating homework assignments when I was at school decades ago now, and La Belle Dame Sans Merci, one of my favourite poems, possibly in my top ten depending on my mood.

Just being in Hampstead Heath, a far cry from the Medway Towns, where I lived for many years, let alone from Gibraltar, I felt a little out of place, or, as my daughter, who had come along with me, put it: 'it's a far cry from Varyl Begg, no?' Nice spot, though, Hampstead Heath, if you don't mind emptying your bank account for a cup of tea and a slice of cake.

Then we meandered into Keats' House, which was basking in glorious sunshine and framed in spring blossoms, walking, almost literally, into Gabriel Moreno, otro llanito, who was reading from his latest collection of poems at the Salon and treating us to some of his songs. 

It was a wonderful afternoon, filled with poetry, books, sunshine and wine (where there are good books, may there always be good wine), and music. Gabriel sang to us, treated us to a performance of the song I've Never Loved Before, the lyrics as yet unpublished and written by Leonard Cohen, put to music by Gabriel Moreno. A beautiful song, the lyrics, as expected of Cohen, profound and touching, and brought to life by Moreno's delicate musical touch.

(This is Ruth Irwin reading some of her poetry)

For me, though, it was the readings from Gabriel's book Gibraltar, that touched me most deeply. Presented by both Gabriel and the book's translator and publisher, Rafael Peñas Cruz, the readings filled this colonial English house with the sounds and rhythms of Gibraltar: el whisky con cola, and la Heineken, and el agua te traga si no te espabila of the llanito sonnet, Marlboro Man, to quote from just one. I lost a cousin to el estrecho many years ago: desaparecido el y su lancha. It was moving, here, at the heart of London, at the core of the colonial power that tried so hard to extinguish our language and reshape our Gibraltarian identity, for our language, experiences and existence to be acknowledged and applauded. Se me vino una lagrima al ojo, de verdad, and that doesn't happen often.

Gabriel Moreno and Rafael Peña Cruz reading from Gibraltar

To quote from Gabriel's poem, The Day I read at Keats' House, also in the collection, Gibraltar:

"You see, when I was growing up

 I was told poems were for posh folk.

        I recall reading Keats and thinking;

        What if I am never good enough?......

"I shall allow the dryad to answer;

        Hop on my wings, to mossy ways,

        our tongues will unravel England.

        Today is a perfect day to change." 

            

Pondering Poetry

Pondering Poetry

Pondering poetry is something I do from time to time: I like to read poetry, I like to read about poetry, think about it, play about with the sound and feel of poetry. I sometimes even have a go at writing poetry, but all too frequently emerge from my scribbling and pondering feeling at worst frustrated at my pathetic effort, and at best flat, staring at my attempt much as a fishing enthusiast will gaze at a tiddler with a sense of emptiness after an eight hour stint by the water.

This feeling of inadequacy at my own clumsy attempt at stringing words together was heightened this weekend, when, browsing my bookshelves, I found a copy of Seamus Heaney's The Haw Lantern and decided to indulge myself to an afternoon of poetry in a shady corner, away from the hullabaloo of the beaches and the scorch of the August sun. By the time I had read to page 3 and the closing line of the first poem, "Alphabets", I was close to tears: tears of joy at experiencing again the genius of Heaney, and of melancholy that try as I might, I know I will never have the skill to even come close to displaying a fraction of similar talent. What an imposter you are, Anderson, I chastised myself at the presumption that I, too, could even attempt to call myself a poet. Not even a modest writer of poetry (is that different to a poet? Does the reordering of those words add a subtle layer of meaning that distinguishes the true poet from the writer of poetry - something to be discussed at length over several bottles of fine wine, perhaps?).

Besides sheer pleasure, reading poetry also serves to help a poet learn; how to build an image, how to express emotion, how to use rhyme, rhythm, pace, line length, enjambement and other techniques. A good poem stops you in your tracks, gives you a hitherto unknown insight into the world, into humanity. It makes you question, it makes you think, it ignites emotion. A great poem will leave you breathless. It may even inspire you, which is how I felt at the close of The Haw Lantern.

Inspired, because, of course, my poetry will never equal Heaney's in standard. Nor will it reach the beauty of Lorca's images, the wisdom of Neruda, the poignancy of Yeats, the passion of Byron. But every clumsy attempt at shaping up a set of words, at moulding meaning into them, at distilling down an image, or an emotion or a moment in time into its pure essence and conveying it with precision and music and beauty, takes me a step closer to producing something that might be worth reading.

Knowing my shortcomings is what makes it so difficult to decide to submit a poem for publication, or for peer review, or to collect and publish my own work. Who do you think you are, Anderson, yells my imposter syndrome voice at me (she's far louder than the quiet muse of inspiration that gently nudges me into persisting).

This is why I was quietly delighted at reading The Crooked Timber by Giordano Durante and Gabriel Moreno, two writers whose poems I read, enjoy and admire. In this slim book, the two Gibraltarian poets discuss not just the craft of poetry, but what it means to be a poet in Gibraltar, a place where there is not yet a tradition of poetry, where the Gibraltarian poem has not quite emerged but is being birthed slowly, laboriously under the pens of those Gibraltarians who study and write it and who dare to consider themselves poets. There is a good deal of material in The Crooked Timber to spark discussion, but this section resonated with me. Moreno is writing about feelings of frustration at what he calls "the limitations of our genius" and how easy it is to feel diminished in the presence of the great poets and he says:

"It is on these occasions that I repeat to myself, like a mantra: they felt the same awkwardness in respect to their masters. The were equally ashamed and terrified even if they would not admit it!

"And it is with this exercise in self-delusion that I am enticed to continue to type and thread words on my computer screen hoping that, one day, they might reach someone who actually needs them." (Durante and Moreno, Pg 13).

En serio, Durante and Moreno, with their musings on poetry, have managed to rescue me from the depths of a despair so deep that I almost burned pages and pages of poetry that I deemed worthless. (Actually, that's a bit extreme; I probably would only have deleted them off my laptop, not actually chucked my MacBook on a bonfire).

And maybe, just maybe, when I get my breath back from the brilliance that is Heaney, I might just start pushing and pulling words around my computer screen to see if I can shape a half-decent poem out of them.

The Crooked Timber, annotated and tabulated and highly recommended

References:

Heaney, Seamus, The Haw Lantern (1987), Faber and Faber Limited, London.

Durante, Giordano and Moreno, Gabriel, The Crooked Timber: Letters between two Middle-Aged Poets (2025) Patuka Press.