Flinging open of the Fence

The Gibraltar / Spain border as it was

So, it's gone. The border fence that has overshadowed our lives for three or more generations was finally flung open at the stroke of midnight. As expected, hordes of people gathered on both sides. They swarmed in and out and some swarmed in and out again, several times over. There were tears and jeers. There was chanting, flag waving, some bullish challenges, some provocative gestures, but mostly there was a sense of jubilation. At last another shackle removed. A new era begun.

There will be many words dedicated to commentary on this event. Journalists have been gearing up to this for weeks. Here, I want to acknowledge the great work by GBC in their coverage of the lead up to the signing of the Treaty and to the lifting of border restrictions - I watched the live footage as nosy as the next person but too lazy to go down and see for myself, and a tad worried for Kevin Ruiz reporting from  the Spanish side as he was mobbed by flag-draped football fans celebrating Spain's getting through to the World Cup finals. There will be acres of paper and digital space dedicated to political commentary, with  myriad points of view expressed and opinions aired.

What, I wondered, will the artists make of this? What emotions will the poets capture, what impressions will they pen, what scenes will be sung by the troubadours of these twin towns of the wide spaces between the land and the deep blue sea of the Strait?

The keyboard warriors were out, virtually, in force,  hiding in darkened rooms no doubt, feverishly tapping at their various devices, engaging their avatars and bots in battle with a world that they fear and appear to loathe. Their prophecies of instant invasion strangled as the chanting by groups of Spaniards wrapped in their national flag just inside Gibraltar's boundary turned out to be 'viva los llanitos', far far louder than the cries of 'Gibraltar Español' which have been heard ringing from the north face of the Rock innumerable times through the bars and streets of our city on beery Friday nights.

I found myself having a strong urge to engage with the artists and writers of La Línea. I may still be trying to master the craft in English, let alone interact with those who master Spanish for their art, but as I watched those scenes on TV, the urge to integrate culturally was strong. What an exciting opportunity. I think I had my eyes open to this when I participated in this year's Bloomsday and watched Rebecca Calderon's play at the Museo de Cruz Herrara, and met Raquel Ñeco, delegada de Cultura y Actos Públicos del Ayuntamiento de La Línea de la Concepción. The hour or so spent there woke me up to the realisation of how deeply enmeshed our cultures are in each other.

Bloomsday 2026

Some people will disagree with me, they will lay claim to their imposed Britishness as if this were at our roots, as if it were only from this that the totality of our Gibraltarian identity is derived. But we all have mixed roots that have fed and nourished us from different soils and all those need to be acknowledged and celebrated, because it is from this that our strength is derived. Just look at how multi-ethnic Gibraltar is, and here I tip a nod to acknowledge the terrific contribution made by Moroccans to Gibraltar during those hard years of the closed border and how brilliantly those who once came to work have made their lives here, how there is no longer Moroccans and Gibraltarians, just Gibraltarians with Moroccan roots.

Identity is, in any case, a transient thing. It changes many times through one life, let alone through the myriad lives and multiple generations of a community. Of course our identity will change as time passes, not because we can flow in and out of each other's spaces more fluidly, but because life is in a constant state of flux, because circumstances both personal and social, change. The mixing of languages, cultures, influences, manners, expectations, skills and identity is something that happens in human life and has always happened. It is what makes us survive and thrive. And that is what Gibraltareños and Linenses are remarkably good at: surviving and thriving. I am certain that, in the arts, especially in our writing, we will accelerate towards excelling, together.

So if anyone in Gibraltar and La Línea is up for a joint writing project, look me up. My Spanish is not great, pero mira, pasa.

Gibraltar and La Línea - sister cities

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." 

            

An Outpouring of Poetry

 

"There is an outpouring of poetry in Gibraltar," said Giordano Durante speaking at the Poetry Panel event during the Gibraltar Literary Festival earlier this month. As one of the founders and editor of Gibraltar's only literary journal, Patuka Press, as well as being a poet and one of the local champions for writing and literature in Gibraltar, Durante is perfectly placed to comment on a phenomenon people are beginning to notice.

I'm just going to look at Gibraltar's 'poetry scene' in the past couple of months to see what is happening to poetry here. Actually, I must pause. Even using the words 'poetry scene' would have been impossible a few years ago. To use the pandemic of 2020 / 2021 as a convenient time marker, pre-pandemic most of us who wrote poetry did so in isolation, and only a very few who had sufficient confidence, or the financial means, would self publish a small volume or pamphlet. Self publishing is not an easy feat, self promotion for some, myself included, is even harder, especially if you have to pay out for venues, advertising, a launch party and more, in the hope that enough readers will buy your scribblings so that you at least recover your costs. With poetry in particular, this is highly unlikely. 

Nevertheless, there were some published works from local authors, including from Durante himself and also Gabriel Moreno, Humbert Hernandez, Sonia Golt among a very few others. Notably, there was also an 'Anthology of Contemporary Gibraltar Poets' published in 2019. Clearly Gibraltarian poets had made small but steady and impactful efforts to expand the readership of their work and to encourage others to write and be published. All very noble, but it was post-pandemic when things began to change, and, probably the most influential factor was the launch of Patuka Press in 2023.

In Gibraltar, other than self publishing, making a bit of a splash for a day or two in the local media and hoping people read what you write and like it, there is no other way of having your work published. You can, of course, submit to international presses and publishing houses and perhaps you will be successful, but in Gibraltar itself, there is no bar set for standards, no measure against which you can pit yourself as a writer and find ways of improving. You have to do it all online, with support either paid for if you can afford an editor or a literary consultant, or through online writing groups, which can be tremendously helpful but lack the "Gibraltar" context. How might an online group based in Australia, for example, wonderful though it might be for general content in English or Australian-based content, help with a piece written in Llanito?

For years, except for small, personal friendship groups for some, and except for occasional events such as workshops or the annual poetry competition organised by the local government agency, Gibraltar Cultural Services, poets have tinkered with their art alone, to a great extent isolated, if not entirely from the world of poetry, then to a degree isolated from each other.

There was another small barrier to the expansion of poetry as an art form in Gibraltar, in my view at least, and that was the elitism that surrounds art in general, and writing in particular. I am not going into the thorny argument of what constitutes literature in this post, but until recently, coinciding with the beginnings of the 'outpouring' referred to by Durante, if something wasn't 'classic' or comparable to the great poets, it was not considered literature. With the isolation and lack of support structures as part of our cultural infrastructure, Gibraltar was unlikely ever to grow its own Heaney, or Yeats, Lorca or Whitman, Plath or Oliver. Yet, our poets are in their own class, writing our Gibraltarian themes in our voices, whether those are expressed in Spanish or English or a code-switching version of both or in the more vernacular Llanito. Perhaps it is time for Gibraltar to create its own definition and understanding of what is "Gibraltarian literature" and where its poems and poets fit into it. What I can say in the context of this particular post, is that when Gibraltar's poets opened their arms to all of poetry's many and continuously evolving forms, we found a fountain of inspiration and in Patuka Press, an outlet for our work. 

Back to my original intention which was to consider what this 'outpouring' looked like in the past few months.

The poets at the Bosom Buddies' fundraiser (with yours truly dressed in funereal black and with her eyes shut). Photo courtesy of The Gibraltar Chronicle

In September, Sonia Golt organised a poetry recital at an event to raise funds for her charity 'Bosom Buddies'. She reached out to a few of us to offer our time and talent and we all jumped at the chance, to donate that time to a very worthy cause and also to take up the opportunity of showcasing our work. The event was a huge success in poetic terms: Sonia was incredibly intelligent about the mix of styles and languages that was presented and brought together a fine sample of local poetry from the serious to the saucy, from the emotional to the humorous, and some accompanied by music.

Just a few weeks later, Native Tongues was held at the Music Association of Gibraltar venue in Wellington Front. This has been organised by James Ablitt as James the Heartist, whose talent as a poet is breathtaking, and hosted by the inimitable Jonathan Teuma. Along with Patuka Press, I think this monthly gathering of spoken word artists is hugely influential. It is a small bar, a small stage, but with enormous heart and energy. Poets, singers, storytellers, rappers can take up the mic and offer up their work. It is received with interest and encouragement and I loved watching and listening and in particular, seeing young artists fish out bits of scrap paper from their back pockets, roll sleeves up over their tattoos, and read out the most tender, heartfelt words. Suddenly we (the old poets who have struggled to produce work alone in little garret rooms) felt that there was a place in this city for us, we felt part of a larger movement. It is a human impulse to belong to community and to tell stories. Native Tongues is another outlet that is instrumental in smashing open the dams and allowing that outpouring.

GBC Interview on Native Tongues

The following week, Gabriel Moreno was in town with some of his Quivering Poets promoting his new album "Nights in the Belly of Bohemia". His gigs are always a treat, always fun and always touching, because his lyrics are poems set to music and transport you from the earthy to the ethereal in a few bars. He was kind enough to ask me to recite a couple of my poems and also invited Naomi Duarte to read hers and Jonathan Bugeja added some of his own songs to the evening. I was downright honoured and loved the event, especially when unexpectedly, violinist Richard Moore, provided a backing to one of my poems "Grandmother's Hands". Amazing someone can do that without even rehearsing. I was awestruck by his talent. 

Article on the Poetry Panel courtesy of The Gibraltar Chronicle

Moving into November, the Poetry Panel was one of the later billings at the Literary Festival but provided an engaging discussion and well-attended event that caught the interest of local readers and perhaps an international audience with the presence of Trino Cruz, whose work around the Iberian peninsula and Morocco is key to Gibraltar's writers finding audiences outside not just Gibraltar, but the English-speaking world. Greek poet and organiser of Patras Word Poetry Festival, Tassos Pagliaslis, was also on the panel and he gave interesting insights from an outsider's perspective and  spoke at length about AI and the creative process. Also on the panel was Tessa Rosado Standen who went on a few days later to give a recital and discussion of her beautiful and sensitive poems. Tessa hasn't published yet but I rather hope she will, even if, like the rest of us, she has to resort to online self publishing - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. Self published literature is still literature. Self published poetry is still poetry and a feat to be proud of.

That same evening, a group of us held the Al Margen event at the Rock Hotel. A group of poets, energised and inspired by the 'outpouring' of poetry that is beginning to make its mark in Gibraltar, and wanting to encourage and facilitate the showcasing of poetry and storytelling from the edges of the mainstream, set up a 'cabaret' of poets. What a great night it was. The event was sold out (or it would have been if we'd sold tickets but we wanted poetry to be free, on tap as it were, to be enjoyed by those with means and those without). We had poems, llanito haikus, raps and songs and serious moments and so much laughter. There was wine and food and clapping and cheers. What a great night! What a night to keep those pens scribbling with ever more intensity and passion! Al Margen was what literary festivals are all about - bringing writers and audiences closer together, the human connection without which so-called literature is dry and soulless. Here is a small taster of what it was like, with the delightful moment when Kailash Noguera stepped up to the mic after many years away from reciting his poetry (we want many more moments like that, where hitherto unfêted yet talented poets are properly heard):

Kailash Noguera's performing his poetry at Al Margen

Added to this mix there have been publications of poetry books, such as those by Joe Adamberry and Leyla Costa Gomez, and rap events at local venues - rap is in my view a form of poetry, the rhythms and rhyming skills of some rappers are banging (is that too much of a Gen Z expression for this old girl?!)

Just as I was going to publish this post, I found out that Sonia Golt, Jonathan Teuma and Patuka Press have all won cultural awards this year!

Durante's 'outpouring' of local poetry is not an exaggeration. Now the dam has been broken, the outpouring will hopefully become a flow and even a flood. Perhaps it will spawn new venues, new collaborations, more local support, from government or otherwise, more courage to publish and lay on independent fringe events, and perhaps even another literary journal or...is this too ambitious?...a publishing house of our own, a non-profit, community-based collective that works to publish locally. Long may this outpouring last.

A few images from Al Margen taken by DJD Photography:

Rebecca Calderon and her hilariously irreverent song about the principle auditor scandal

Jonathan Teuma preparando el cochinillo at Al Margen

Adrian Pisarello

James the Heartist and his drum   

Oh yes, and yours truly sans hair brush:

Lost in my own words "To Speak Your Tongue" a poem for Al Margen

Al Margen - poetry at the edges

 

I've been beating the drum and banging the gong about this event for a couple of weeks now and I make no apologies: this is an important event for poets, singer/songwriters, storytellers and for their audience. It is an important event for Gibraltar's cultural development. 

Al Margen is a 'cabaret of poets, writers and troubadours'. I love that phrase, a great way to describe a gathering of writers, 'cabaret' both as a collective noun and as a scene-setter. That's what we will have at the Rock Hotel on Wednesday evening (12th November) a scattering of tables, waiter service, low lights and high ambience, a small stage, lights, music, song and poetry. And wine, because what would a gathering of poets and troubadours, writers and songsmiths be without unas copitas de vino? Wine and song is as much sustenance to poetry as air and water.

We have gathered from the edges of Gibraltar's cultural life, from those border lands between the mainstream and 'other ways', between conscious writing and the words that sometimes stream from our subconscious and arrive without warning, giving no hint as to where they came from but simply that they are and they are here, now. We have emerged from our shadowy twilight to bring our thoughts, wrought into rhymes and rhythms and verses, and what we have to say adds that little bit more colour to a cultural landscape dominated by visual arts. From the margins we bring a sharper edge, touch of darkness, we speak of the unspeakable, shake the apple tree of complacency till the apples fall into the ground and root into new creations.

Poetry in Gibraltar is in a growth stage. Not that this is new - Gibraltarian poets have been writing for years. What seems a bit different recently, and maybe more so this year, is that poets are suddenly getting a readership, people are talking about the poets and their work. They are sitting up, pricking their ears up and listening. Not least academics, literature experts and linguists from across the world.

There have been more books, including poetry books, published in the past few months than in some past years, mostly well-received, although we do tend to like a book launch in Gibraltar - the spectacle as much as the contents. I didn't have a launch party for my poetry book Beyond the Blue, but it's worth a read:

Beyond the Blue by Jackie Anderson

There have been readings for charity: I took part in one to help raise funds for the charity Bosom Buddies, back in September, organised by the inimitable Sonia Golt, also herself a writer of stories novels and a poet. Gabriel Moreno (a true troubadour, methinks) came to Gibraltar to promote his new album, the rather brilliant Nights in the Belly of Bohemia (treat yourself to a copy; it really is good, as much musically as lyrically) and gave some local poets the mic as part of his gigs. James the Heartist runs a monthly spoken word event called Native Tongues at the MAG venue at Wellington Front and writers and rappers and story-tellers are welcome to come and pick up the mic and try out their words on willing and highly receptive audiences. Jonathan Teuma has been performing his brilliant brand of slam poetry, mixing this up with llanito haikus, in various events around Gibraltar, notably at Native Tongues and at the Cabana en el quari. Que bueno!

Gabriel Moreno's Night in the Belly of Bohemia

The Literary Festival is taking place this week and a poet's corner has been carved into this by organisers, Gibraltar Cultural Services, which places Gibraltarian poets almost shoulder to shoulder with international writers. It certainly provides a good platform from which to continue to showcase Gibraltar's talents. The Poetry Panel also on 12th November (what a day for Gibraltarian poetry!) will treat the audience to a sample of Gibraltar's poetry and a discussion of where poetry this might be heading, its development and what we can look forward to.

Poetry Panel - Gibraltar Literary Festival

This is what Gibraltarian poetry has needed for years. It's all very well sitting in a lonely room dipping the quill in ink and trimming the candles, but when you write poetry, you want to communicate something, you want your voice to be heard, your words to be read and to bear some meaning to the reader. 

Poets are emerging from the shadows of the margins of life and this is a good time to pick up their work, read it and re-read it and, because this is Gibraltar and we are small and friendly and love chatting over a cafelito or two, reach out and talk to us about our work. Engage. Be the audience we need you to be so we can grow and create more. Draw us out from the margins from time to time and help us link Gibraltar to the rest of the literary world. 

See you at the Rock Hotel on Wednesday 12th November. This cabaret of poets, writers and troubadours is waiting to meet you, entertain you and maybe even challenge you.

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.

Gibraltarian Literature - emerging from the shadow of the Rock

It has taken many years of a few, enlightened people banging their lonely drums here to bring the discussion out into the open. Yet Gibraltarian literature has been around for a long time: Elio Cruz, Leopold Sanguinetti, Hector Licudi, Sam Benady, Mary Chiappe and numerous others have been among the Rock's writers. And when a Gibraltarian writer commits his or her thoughts to words, whether fiction, non-fiction or other forms of writing, then the Rock of Gibraltar and its people, are written into the world's literature. The sad thing is, many in Gibraltar, many in its wider diaspora and much of the rest of the world, barely know about it.

It is thanks to the work of several individual writers such as Mark Sanchez, Humbert Hernandez, Trino Cruz among others, who have had the temerity to publish and openly discuss their work with academics in other countries, that finally the voices of Gibraltar's writers are being heard in other parts of the world. And, in the odd way that history works, it is because literary critics and other academics outside of Gibraltar have observed and are researching the value of Gibraltarian literature, and its relevance in world literature, that these voices are being both heard and perhaps given a greater sense of value than in Gibraltar itself.

The online Symposium, "In the Shadow of the Rock: A Symposium on Gibraltarian Literature", organised by Professor  Robert Patrick Newcomb of UC Davis in California and co-hosted by Professor  Edwige Tamalet Talbayev of Tulane University in New Orleans recently brought together seven contemporary poetry and prose writers from Gibraltar to talk about Gibraltarian literature, their own work and their thoughts on Gibraltar's literary relationship with the countries by which it is most influenced: Britain, Spain and Morocco. 

As a participant, listening to my contemporaries and samples of their work was tremendous - a rare opportunity, since literary events or literature in general has such a low profile in Gibraltar. Perhaps, and probably perversely so, it is considered of low cultural value, when, in reality, it will always be the words of writers that live on long into the future and are far more likely to shape and influence thinking than some other expressive art forms: while the illustrative and expressive function of a painting or a photograph will engender an emotional response, stimulate discussion and thinking, and music will express a range of emotion, it is the written and the spoken word that will spark, create, and ultimately record debate in a way that will offer future generations the details of our current story.

There was so much depth to the symposium, so many strands of discussion, so many themes to be explored further, that I am not going to try to relay them here. I hope very much that there will be further work on this by the talented literary critics involved in the symposium.

As a non-academic, to listen to the thoughts of professors on the other side of the world and in other countries discuss our work, our Gibraltarian words, was illuminating. I always had a hunch that Gibraltar writers were underserved, and I know from talking to many writers here that there is a sense of Gibraltar's writers working in the dark, that their words will never see the light of day or never be read beyond their immediate circle of family and friends. I know some logged in to the symposium, and I hope, that like me, they found inspiration to keep going. Because there is a growing platform for them outside Gibraltar. There are readers beyond the shadow of the Rock, and tough though the road to publication might be, the effort is worth the effort personally and also because you will be part of pulling Gibraltarian literature out from under the shadow of that Rock.

For those of you who didn't get the chance to join in either to listen in or join in the discussions, here's a quick summary:

Humbert Hernandez read an extract from one of the short stories he has written based on the patio culture of the Gibraltar of his youth, a culture that has all but disappeared. His presentation sparked a discussion on language, Gibraltar's bilingualism, the part this plays in its literature and where this bilingualism and indeed, 'llanito' might be heading in the future.

Marisa Salazar spoke about how she came to write poetry, the 'novel inside her' and she read some extracts from her work. She uses the simplicity of the haiku form to create intense, unforgettable images. She recited poetry inspired by the sea and also by the border. The issue of borders, in a city whose life is dominated by the border and by the sea, enclosed as we are by those features, is particularly pertinent in Gibraltarian literature.

Giordano Durante gave a detailed expose of his poem, "Alameda Interlude" published in his first collection "West". Through the words of the poem, and his exposition, he shed light on so much about Gibraltarian culture, how we still cling to the vestiges of colonialism while displaying snippets of a myriad other cultures, how the remains of those colonial days are crumbling about us, and again, the issue of our "mongrel talk" fuelled discussion about Gibraltarian use of language and how writers reflect that.

Trino Cruz, a writer published in Spain and Morocco, recited some of his beautiful poetry, which he writes in Spanish. He also spoke about the importance of lifting Gibraltarian writing off the confines of the Rock itself to find its place in the literature of the wider locality: the Iberian Peninsula, Morocco and North Africa and perhaps even further afield. Among the poems he recited was one of my personal favourites, "Si borramos algunas huellas", published in the "Anthology of Contemporary Gibraltar Poets". 

Mark Sanchez, who has so successfully brought Gibraltarian writing to the attention of the rest of the world, read an extract from his  new book, Gooseman, due to be published shortly, a multi-layered novel, it promises to be a delightful mix of gritty no-holds barred realism tinged with his characteristic dark humour. I am looking forward to reading this when it comes out. Mark also pointed out that he includes both Spanish and Llanito in the work; it is, after all, a realistic portrayal of what we speak here in Gibraltar. Our language, in our literature.

Professor David Alvarez, of Grant Valley State University in Michigan, spoke about his views on Gibraltarian literature, its development and how it has broken away from the shackles of colonialism, from being written about by the imperialist powers of Spain and Britain, to producing its own voices. He mentioned the importance of works of criticism by Gibraltar University's Becky Gabay and Jennifer Ballantine's Institute of Gibraltarian and Mediterranean Studies, the need for a people to 'have an inventory', and mused on the Gibraltarian diaspora and the cosmopolitan nature of Gibraltar - the movement of peoples in and out and how that is a feature that might create boundaries to the development of a Gibraltarian literature and at the same time be the reason for its potential success.

A good number of threads and themes emerged from the symposium which will give me much to mull over. Above all, it is clear that Gibraltar's writers simply must keep writing and that Gibraltar urgently needs to help them find a platform for sharing their work and for writing the Rock into world literature. I would urge all Gibraltar's writers, whether on the Rock or somewhere in another part of the world, to keep writing on whatever theme and in whatever genre. This growing body of work will be part of Gibraltar in years to come.

This being my first time participating in a symposium on literature, I'm not sure what my contribution achieved, except to add a bit to the discussion on the vital nature of stories and how they shed light on a culture, on how a particular people live and think and function in a specific time and place. I've published my contribution on the link below - feel free to read and to make comment. The conversation on Gibraltarian literature, is, after all, only just beginning. Long may it last.

Writing in the Shadow of the Rock, by Jackie Anderson

Reading the plague to write its stories

Reading the Plague

To be a writer you have to be a reader first - words of advice from an author who kindly spent time with me some years ago encouraging me to take up the pen but to make sure that I always kept up with reading. And for once, the lockdown means I actually have some quality time for varied reading.

A quick trawl of the internet reveals a veritable tsunami of writing about coronavirus. A combination of predictions of doom and castigation of any human misdemeanour, a cluster of conspiracy theories, an avalanche of advice (much of it unfounded, unproven and utterly useless in the face of an illness that has no cure), a cry of horror at something that threatens humanity - not human life, because that is lost in its thousands daily, neglectfully cast aside and wantonly wasted by run-of-the-mill tyranny, rampant capitalism and ordinary human cruelty. The threat we fear is the threat to the comfortable sense of control that humans like to have over their lives, over the world, over nature. 

When terrified - because fear is the over-riding emotion every person seems to share with everyone else during times of plague - humanity turns to stories, to narratives that might provide some kind of explanation, that might help an understanding of the chaos that appears to have suddenly arrived in our midst. So we flick through social media, and scroll through our search engines, allowing the time we have left to trickle through our fingers while we grasp at the straws that are slung out across the ether by everyone else, who feels pretty much the same.

So in the face of this endless stream of words, how can we best select what we read to obtain information, inspiration and, possibly, solace?

Solace in Stories

We, as a species, function intellectually through stories. We understand the world through narratives that exhibit patterns that our brains can pick out, recognise and to which we respond almost instinctively. Once we learn to read, to assimilate written information and assess this subliminally, and in particular once we soak ourselves in fiction reading, we simply can't stop. 

And once we join in the writing of those narratives, we can't stop that either. So I've put together a list of some of the writing I've enjoyed reading these past few days of staying home. I hope some of the ideas of further reading helps relieve any of my readers who might be bored, and inspire some fellow-writers to add to the welter of words storming through our world right now.

"Reading is an infection, a burrowing into the brain: books contaminate, metaphorically, and even microbiologically...But, of course, books are also a salve and a consolation." A short excerpt from Jill Lepore's article in The New Yorker of 30th March 2020, "What our contagion fables are really about" which takes a stroll through the literature of plague and touches on some of the fears humankind experiences through plague - in the face of so much progress, plague, pestilence, pandemic represent dramatic regress.

What our contagion fables are really about

Pandemics spare no person, no culture, no community. Poets have written about disease in so many ways, in all of humanity's languages. In Night Visitor, the medieval Iraqui-Syrian poet, al-Mutannabi, wrote an ode to fever:

"For she does not pay her visits save under cover of darkness,

I freely offered her my linen and my pillows,

But she refused them, and spent the night in my bones.

My skin is too contracted to contain both my breath and her,

So she relaxes it with all sorts of sickness.

When she leaves me, she washes me

As though we had retired apart for some forbidden action.

It is as though the morning drives her away,

And her lachrymal ducts are flooded in their four channels.

I watch for her time without desire,

Yet with the watchfulness of the eager lover."

(al-Mutannabi  (915-965))

For an interesting look at 1400 years of Middle Eastern writing about plagues and contagion, try this article by Mustapha Abu Seineh of 27 March 2020 in the Middle East Eye:

Plague and Poetry: How Middle East authors have written about disease

And here, in the Library of Economics and Liberty, Sarah Skwire offers some pandemic reading to help you through whatever hours of boredom that might be plaguing your lockdown:

Five Books about plagues and pandemics and five books to make you feel better

Personally, I'm opting for complete escapism and disappearing into some fantasy world or other, maybe Tolkein, perhaps Pratchett or possibly Pullman, or Rowling, or even a re-run of Moorcock...

Summertime, seaside and sonnets

Low tide on the Medway Estuary

Some writers use the summer as a period of "downtime".  It makes sense - the days are long and drowsy, filled with the warmth of sunshine, the scent of wildflowers and the sleepy hum of bumble bees. The break from routine refreshes us and our creative muscle becomes toned and honed so that we can return to that writing project that will then fill our autumn evening.

So the idyll goes.  Many others of us are still stuck in the treadmill that takes us in long grey lines of commuters to the conveyor belt of activity that is the office or warehouse or wherever it is we spend our days and we are still trying to scribble out that masterpiece late into the night wondering if anyone is ever going to bother reading those words that seem so difficult to draw out of our exhausted minds.

Taking a walk by the Thames can be surprisingly inspirational

Yet even for those stuck at work, the general slowdown that comes each summer can be a bit of a breather, a chance to relax, refresh and restore the spark to their writing. 

Some city dwellers are lucky enough to find local parks with a lake, such as Capstone Park in Chatham

Summertime is thought of as synonymous with the sea.  A good walk along the shore can do wonders to dissolve those cobwebs, clear the fog of overwork (surely I am not the only one who suffers from acute brain fog after one of those interminable meetings where nothing is actually decided?), and inspire.  The sound of the waves, their movement, the way the light plays on them, what they mean to the poet, for example, can all be expressed in words, words that have a gift of arising as the mind relaxes and the writer observes the sea. Take these, from Pablo Neruda in his poem "The Wide Ocean".

The falling wave,

arch of identity, shattering feathers,

is only spume when it clears, 

and returns to its source, unconsumed.

I rather think that a description like this comes from the poet's close observation of wave after wave after wave crashing along the sea shore.

I love being by the sea.  Just an hour after work is enough to energise me.  And I love taking a stroll along the ragged edge of a river, or the wide marshes on the fringe of the estuary.  Some people do similar.  Or they fish, collect pebbles, shells, dig around the mud for cockles and mussels, take photographs with their complex cameras and long lenses.  On my walks along the canal bank, I see students sketching, retired artists daubing watercolours on canvas.  Bodies of water appeal to thinkers as well as doers.  Writers collect words.  Then they go away and mould them into poems, or sentences that pick up the thread of their novel, or add meaning to a story-line. 

So whether you are on holiday at the seaside, or stuck at work, it's worth making the most of those lingering hours of daylight to go down to the river, or lake, or sea, or pond.  Let your mind wander and let the words flow like the incoming tide.  As the sonnet by John Keats goes:

It keeps eternal whisperings around 
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often 'tis in such gentle temper found
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be mov'd for days from whence it sometime fell,
When last the winds of heaven were unbound.
Oh ye! who have your eye-balls vex'd and tir'd,
Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;
Oh ye! whose ears are dinn'd with uproar rude,
Or fed too much with cloying melody,--
Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood
Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quir'd! 

John Keats