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‘Something Dark’ is a witty performance by an Englishman of Ethiopian origins. A smart performer who revisits his childhood ‘in care’ and his search for family. Gilbert Calleja met him at St James Cavalier 
Lemn arrived in Malta Thursday afternoon and went directly to meet the boys residing in St Patrick’s Salesian school where he led a one-hour poetry-writing workshop. He enthusiastically recounted: “They loved it. We had so much fun. I asked them to think of someone they loved and refer to them in metaphor. The boys reciprocated my good intent and the love I invested in this workshop. Children deserve to be loved. Together we came up with this short poem to the one they love – you’re the memory to the computer, you’re the bee to the flower, you’re the frame to the picture, you’re the redness to my heart.”
How would you introduce yourself?
My name is Lemn Sissay. I write poetry and stuff. By the way it was reported in the nationals in England that Malta is the happiest place on earth. And now for my play entitled “Something Dark”…
Lemn Sissay is your name as a grown-up. Norman Mark Greenwood your childhood name and “Chalky” your former nickname. How much of each of these characters is present in “Something Dark”?
They are present throughout Something Dark.
You are writer, actor, playwright, poet and recording-artist. Your first published poetry came in 1988 with “Tender Fingers In a Clenched Fist”, followed by “Rebel without Applause” in 1992 and “the Fire People” (also your band’s name) in 1998. How angry were you as a young man? Why?
It was as impossible not to be angry as it was as impossible not to ask the questions. In fact it would have been offensive not to be emotional about what happened. Anger is an emotion often expressed in the desperate complicated and necessary search for love and truth – that’s a very Da Vinci code kind of answer is it? How angry? How strong was the search. I would say, very, very strong, impossible to ignore. Something Dark, my life story, is not about anger as it is about the quest.
What’s different about the 1999 “Morning Breaks in the Elevator” and the 2001 children’s book “The Emperor’s Watchmaker”?
A simple answer would be to say that one is for children and one is not. Both books are of poems.
Following your growing reputation as performer-poet you have come to the support of various minority groups (numerous arts festivals but also The Unity Cup Festival for example). In 2006 the debate on multiculturalism is likely to continue. At present Malta is experiencing an influx of ‘boat people’, the irregular migrants journeying across the Mediterranean on makeshift rafts. There are no exact estimates of the number of people who die annually at sea while crossing from Africa to Europe but it is believed to run in the thousands. Locally we are experiencing a rise in xenophobia based on issues of nationalism and a struggling economy. What are your views on this issue?
If there is one thing that unites us all it’s xenophobia. It is the same the world over. We are united by racism. Every country has its immigrants and every country has its nationalists – the most dangerous nationalists are the ones who do not realise that they’re nationalist xenophobes. My thinking is thus. Let everyone move everywhere all the time and whenever they want to, with no restrictions, ever – let’s see what world evolves from acceptance, respect and openness.
You have performed to many different audiences world-wide. How do audiences differ from country to country?
I don’t know. I really don’t. I wish I did. I wish I could give you a rundown of all the countries I have been to and how they reacted. But I am concerned more with performing to the best of my ability and this stops me from thinking about audience in such detail. This is not to say that I don’t go into my hotel room and bang my head against a wall thinking ‘they hated it’. But I imagine that you as a journalist, if you paid too much attention to your audience, would you really be interviewing a poet?
What does “Something Dark” tell those who are still struggling?
In the publicity for Something Dark there is a line that goes something like “there is great light in something dark”. And there is.
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