Poetry Meets Imagery in New Art Exhibition at BPL

Miriam Calleja - Choreography of Almost

The Birmingham Public Library is excited to announce the opening of an exhibition featuring works by artist and poetess Miriam Calleja. Stuck; lingering invites viewers to contemplate a unique fusion of verse and visual art or, as Calleja describes it, “a meeting of poetry and imagery in connection and conflict.”

Please join us for an opening reception on Friday, June 6, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in the Lobby Gallery at the Central Library. Calleja will read some of the poems featured in her exhibition. The reception is free and open to the public.

Using techniques such as collage, embroidery, and image transfer, Calleja works with acrylic paint, ink, watercolor, pencil, and found materials to incorporate her original verse into handmade books, assemblages, and mixed-media pieces.

Each of Calleja’s pieces contains a line or an entire poem from her repertoire, including some new unpublished work. The exhibition name is inspired by lines from her poem “A choreography of almost”…

           How long would it take if all day I’m stuck in a poem, 
           Lingering in the semicolon of your hands?

Poems featured in stuck; lingering will be on display alongside Calleja’s artwork so that viewers can explore the correspondence between it and her poetry.

Calleja is an internationally published poet, artist, translator, and writer. A native of Malta, she has lived in Birmingham for the past three years. Her exhibition will be on view at BPL through August 23. Stuck; lingering is made possible by a grant awarded to the Friends Foundation of BPL by the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

Miriam Calleja - Castle Life

Exhibition Statement

“I am driven by desire and difference. Desire to move and hold still. Desire to stop. Desire to linger in the hallways of an unreliable memory. Desire to close doors and forge new paths. Gratitude that numbs desire, makes it stumble in drunkenness. A stuck-in-the-mud desire, a naive desire that sinks to the ground, its back sliding against the wall. The stark realization that naive corners of the heart never really go away. Foolishness in desire; a show of nauseating difference. A frog in the throat. A cold hand, squeezing the chest, undresses you. A desire moody as spring clouds, pulling and pushing. A desire that curls up with tape on its mouth. A fed-up desire that is not afraid to shout. See if you can capture it, it is mercurial—stuck; lingering.” – Miriam Calleja

More about the Artist

Miriam Calleja is published internationally in print and online journals. Her poetry collections include Pomegranate Heart (EDE Books, 2015) and Inside (EDE Books, 2016). Among her poetry chapbooks are Remember (Stamparija Reljic, 2020), Stranger Intimacy (Stamparija Reljic, 2020), and Come Closer, I Don’t Mind the Silence (BottleCap Press, 2023). Calleja’s upcoming book Variations on Silence (PoetryWala, 2025) is translated from the Maltese. Learn more about Calleja at miriamcalleja.com.  

Written by Margaret Splane, Library Assistant III - Birmingham Public Library