Roger Scicluna, Gozo, Malta

Roger Scicluna was a 20th century romantic poet who is very little known, and his almost total absence from the internet is a strong indication of this. However, like Pisani, he was a Gozitan who spent most of his life on the island. The very unusual thing, though, is that he chose to write in English as opposed to Maltese, probably as a result of extensive reading in his father's large English library.

After working as an accountant, Scicluna became an English teacher at the Archbishop's Seminary.

He published two poetry books - A Book of Verse (1937), and Fifty Sonnets (1938), and was strongly influenced by Wordsworth's nature poetry, which he adapted to a Gozitan setting. Other influences were Keats, Leopardi, and Edward Young. The images below are of places in Gozo that Scicluna names three of his poems after:

'Sonnet to Xlendi Bay'.

'Dawn on Rambla Bay in Gozo'.

'Sonnet to Marsalforn Bay'. This photo was taken from Xagħra.