Id-Dverna Tal-Mewta, The Tavern of Death as it would translate in English. In fact, we meet not in the tavern itself, but in the cellar below. Situated at the corner of two narrow streets just behind St. George's Basilica in Victoria, the capital city of the Island of Gozo, Id-Dverna Tal-Mewta is in reality an ideal place for the recitation of poetry. The environment in which Id-Dverna is situated looks medieval: old shops and houses, holy niches, dim lights in traditional lanterns, and almost complete silence broken only by the sound of tapping heels. The cellar itself, our venue, dug in the blue clay of a geological fault, is very old. The rubble wall style of the building, the segmental arches supporting sections of stone slabs in between to form the roof, the spiral staircase by which it is reached, are all indicative of the antiquity of the place. Whoever comes for Poetry on Gozo enjoys both the poetry and the unusual surroundings.
Our summer venue is somewhere at the Citadel or Cittadella as it is
called in the Maltese language. Situated on an isolated hill in the
centre of the island, Citadel Hill was first occupied by the warlike
people of the Bronze Age, Borg in-Nadur Phase, of the Maltese
Prehistoric Archaeological Period, dating back to about 1500 B.C.
In view of its strategic position the small hill was subsequently
chosen to be the main abode of the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians
and Greeks, and the town reached its zenith during the Greco-Roman
Period when it was adorned with temples dedicated to the gods.
Nowadays the cathedral forms the backdrop to summer
Poetry on Gozo evenings.
A map of Victoria is available online.
