Transpoesie – a poem for Malta
This year the Arts Council Malta has asked me to represent Malta during the annual multicultural poetry festival Transpoesie, which is now in its 11th edition. Transpoesie 2021 explores the…
Miriam Calleja is the bilingual author of poetry collections Pomegranate Heart (EDE Books, 2015) and Inside Skin (a two-book series in collaboration with a lith photographer, EDE Books 2016). During the pandemic, her long poem ‘Remember’ was recorded and published as a memento of these times. It was presented during Versopolis: Festival of Hope online.
Her most recent poetry collections are Stranger Intimacy (Stamparija Reljic, 2020) and the collaborative art book Luftmeer (2021) published in Maastricht. Holland.
She has been published in a number of journals and poetry anthologies worldwide, and her work has been translated into Slovene, Greek, Romanian, French, German, Norwegian, and Frisian.
Her work has been published in translation in the collection Wara Settembru (2018, Slovene Writers Association) and in the collection Anthology of Young Maltese Poets (Vakxikon, 2019).
She lives in Malta where she regularly facilitates creative writing workshops, literary salons, and poetry performances. She has read at events in Malta, Berlin, UK, Italy, Germany, San Francisco, Alabama, and New York.
In 2020 she was a guest poet at the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival and at the Shamrock Festival for women poets in Munich.
Miriam is a co-founder and the Vice President of the voluntary organisation PEN Malta, a centre for freedom of expression and promotion of literature which is awaiting accreditation from PEN International.
In 2018 her poem was longlisted for the Troubadour International Prize.
In 2018 she received an honourable mention for the national poetry competition Mons. Amante Buontempo.
In 2017 she was recognised by the Network of Young Women Leaders as a leading female artist in Malta.
In 2015 she was shortlisted for a literary excellence award for her poem ‘Burying the Dark’, which has been published in an anthology by Magic Oxygen in the UK.
She dedicates her time to facilitating creative writing and poetry workshops, performing and writing for performances or publications, and collaborating with artists in different sectors.
Miriam is also a medical writer and has written the book COVID19 and the Virus that Shook the World (Oppian Press, 2020).
Miriam believes that poetry and prose are tools for storytelling that encourage unity. She has great faith in collaboration as a key to communication.
