Countdown (8)

I first though about publishing a book when I was around 19. I had been writing poems for a few years and one or two had been published in student magazines.

Some of my friends were surprised that I enjoyed writing. They all thought that I spent every second of the day playing sport or engaging in some other form of exercise. They weren’t completely wrong either. Very often I would get lost on the way to class and find myself in the gym.

On those days I did not lose my way I would often write limericks about teachers and students during class. Limericks are meant to be funny but some of them were not amused. Perhaps I got a little too close to the truth.

All the same, in the few quiet moments I had, I found myself penning pieces that were more serious. I often wrote about the environment, the effects of war, the importance of freedom for everyone.

Despite the many hours I dedicated to sport, I was also involved in student politics. Times were troubled in Malta. Corruption was rife. To get anything done, required speaking to someone who knew someone.

Certain members of the government encouraged violent gangs to target protesters. I know several people who have scars to show from those times. I was one of the lucky ones. They were difficult, if interesting times. And in order to make sense of it all I turned to poetry.

Having attended an international school, my poetry was not limited to events in Malta. I still remember brandishing a sticker supporting the Solidarność movement in Poland. I took an interest in the conflict in the Middle East, which unfortunately is still in the news today.

It was a poem about the Middle East which called pause on my first efforts to write a book. The poem was several typed pages long. I believed it to be far superior to anything else I had written. Unfortunately, I contrived to lose the poem after taking the sole copy I had, to show to a friend. I did try to rewrite the poem. Several times. But somehow it never felt quite the same. In the end, I decided to take a short break from poetry writing. I only wrote one poem in the next thirty years.

Takes Two and Three and Four

Although I had abandoned poetry for a long time, the urge to write was still there. I attempted to write a comedy where the main character and white ceilings had many encounters. I got to Chapter Two and the story fizzled out.

Then I tried to write a psychological thriller revolving around chat rooms. The problem was technology was changing so much that my story couldn’t keep up with it.

By this time I was writing a weekly basketball column called Take it to the Hole! for the newspaper Times of Malta. It featured a fictional character called Cikku (diminutive for Patrick in Maltese) and poked fun at everyone and anything. During this time, some of my peers encouraged me to write a book about basketball coaching. However, I never seemed to have the time to get it done.

And so it took a return to poetry writing, to eventually get me over the line. Old & UnWise – A Haphazard Collection of Poetry and Thought took over 58 years in the making. A year later and I can honestly say that I am still excited to say that I have a book.

I have promised myself that the next book will not take another 58 years to be completed.

This blog is the eighth in a series of 30 leading up to my sixtieth birthday.  Subscribe to my blog to keep up to date with my posts.

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