Abigail Ardelle Zammit is from the island of Malta and has been writing poetry for a number of years. Her first collection, Voices from the Land of Trees, which takes its inspiration from Guatemala’s violent past, was published by Smokestack (UK, 2007). The poet Graham Mort describes her first collection as “a visceral and moving work. Angry and compassionate, Zammit’s own voice discovers an excoriating yet redemptive timbre, confronting oppression and suffering whilst remaining true to moral complexity and ambivalence.”
Abigail has had poems published in a variety of British, American and Canadian journals including Magma, The SHOp, Aesthetica, Myslexia, Freefall, Iota, the anthologies Peleton, Henge in the Surge, Wara Settembru and Not a Drop: Just Oceans of Poetry, as well as the online journals Drunken Boat, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Bracken, Golden Walkman and The Ekphrastic Review. In 2013 Abigail won the Alan Sillitoe Poetry competition judged by George Szirtes. Two of Abigail’s poems were chosen as joint first prize winners in the Tools for Solidarity Poetry Competition (Belfast, 2017).
In 2015, Abigail won second prize in the Sentinel Poetry Book Competition (London), following which, her second collection, Portrait of a Woman with Sea Urchin, was published. The judges Andy Willoughby and Bob Beagrie described Portrait of a Woman with Sea Urchin as “a sensual and passionate collection” which “makes the language sing. The poet shows a keen eye for focused detail that moves beyond mere picture-making into layers of symbolism and metamorphosis. Abigail A Zammit displays a capacity for speaking through masks, shifting personae without losing a coherent sense of voice.”