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maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 SEPTEMBER 2020 4 THIS WEEK POETRY TEODOR RELJIC speaks to Leanne Ellul about her latest poetry collection, 'l-inventarju tal-kamra l-kaħla', a playful but deeply introspective dive through the corners and corridors of the psyche Stripped bare in the blue This is your debut collection of pub- lished poetry but of course, it hardly represents your first stab at the genre, or indeed writing itself. Which aspect of your work would you say the collected poems of this volume represent? I have been writing since I was 13 years old. At first, of course, I wrote a couple of verses peppered with a lot of rhyme. I experimented with the genre. I can hardly call what I wrote when I was so young, poetry. I experimented with other genres too in fact. I wrote a nov- el and stories for children, and still do. These works may have poetic aspects to them as well. But they are not as brutal- ly blunt as these poems. Poetry (in the various forms it took/ takes) is what remained constant in my life. Poetry is what I return to over and over again. I have had poems presented during events and published in websites, maga- zines and anthologies. Those poems are not included in this collection. Most of the poems in this collection have been written in the last three years. I reread them and rewrote them and saw a pattern that brought them to- gether. I have always said I will publish my (first) poetry book when I'm thirty. I don't know why 30 was so crucial to me (I guess I always thought that being 30 means being mature?) Despite all odds, I did publish my first poetry book at thirty one minus a couple of months. This volume of poems represents my concerns and fears. The things I fall in love with and the things I despise. It presents objects that have a special meaning, objects that shape who I am. Dare I say, these poems are a little bit too much of myself. They are a sneak peek of what I think of and how I react and engage with the world around me. They are observations, the way I digest the world, the way I'd rather see it and sometimes escape from it all. When I started to write these poems I also had just moved away to live on my own – a bold move that gave me time and space to think more, to define my- self even more. The image of the 'blue room', and the compartmentalising of the poems in alphabetical order, is a strong and defining motif of the collection. What led to this stylistic decision, and how do you think it bolsters and props up the poems themselves? First of all, this book is not about the blue room at the White House. Nei- ther is related to Hanne Ørstavik's blue room (although that book has stayed with me). After I wrote the poems, I had lengthy discussions with [fellow writ- ers] Glen Calleja and Clare Azzopardi. I remember us discussing in particular the images and the intertextuality in "We need more books everywhere"