Miriam Calleja: The Imposter Syndrome and the Dangers of Translating Velvet into Plastic

Chosen Tongue

Miriam Calleja is an award-winning Maltese bilingual freelance poet, nonfiction/fiction writer, workshop leader, and translator. She is the author of three poetry collections, two chapbooks, and several collaborative works. Her poetry has been published in anthologies and in translation worldwide. She has recently been Highly Commended for a translated poem by the Stephen Spender Trust. Her latest chapbook is titled Come Closer, I Don’t Mind the Silence (BottleCap Press, 2023). Her essays and poems have appeared in Platform Review, Odyssey, Taos Journal, Tupelo Quarterly, Modern Poetry in Translation, humana obscura, and elsewhere. Miriam lives in Birmingham, Alabama. We discussed the challenges of adjusting to a new culture and language and how that has directed Miriam's poetry. Miriam also explored the difference between her English and her Maltese writing voices and how complex it is to translate the essence of a poem in another language.