This creative work emerges from practice-based autoethonographic research where the performative work, I am Maria! functions as a site of investigation and transformation. A source which ignites creativity and self expression. A wamr invitation to explore more of my work here in my creative world.
I look in the mirror and what do I see, a woman? A girl?
Waiting to be free….of all that they told her she had to be…
Of the connotatations,
the assumptions, the bringing down,
of her pretending to be the clown,
not feeling enough,
not being tough,
not moving forward,
but staying stuck,
in the muck of the past
unknowingly…contributing tomaking it last,
I look in the mirror and all I can seeis a woman a girl,
waiting to go free!
This video marks a new beginning for a poem originally written for I am Maria!. It now emerges as a moment of transformation and transfiguration of voice and artistic self, unfolding within a new paradigm.
This work is not a standalone piece, but an evolving fragment that will form part of the live immersive performance I am Maria: Bloom.
Visual material by Valeria Pazos (PhD candidate, Mexico), whose imagery forms part of this evolving collaboration.
Lonely Star emerges as a poetic reflection on the hidden self, exploring the tension between outward performance and inner truth. Written as part of the I am Maria! creative research project, the poem gives voice to the quiet, often unseen emotional landscape carried beneath the surface. Through rhythm and repetition, it reveals the experience of isolation, self-concealment, and the longing to be fully seen and heard.
Lonely Star
The ups and downs,
the lows the things that nobody knows
the face they never see
hidden behind the curtain,
they’re blind,
I hide
behind a pose
behind my prose
behind the mask of
my smile
my style,
my swag,
and It presses heavily on my heart,
it’s become an art,
hiding that part,
the something I carry
like a pack on my back
24/7
no escape – no heaven
no relief underneath,
but they will never know
that it’s all just a show
and in it’s the real me,
the lonely star,
who only I see.
Lonely Star is a reflective poem and part of the creative research project I am Maria!
This poem extends into a lyrical vocal expression, where the internal voice emerges through rhythm, spoken word, and sound.
Their Song, our Song is a poem which reflects on the lived memories of women born into wartime and the lasting echoes carried across generations. Beginning with the story of a child left behind during the chaos of war, the poem traces a life shaped by hunger, labour, and the silencing of girls’ voices in a world where choice and agency were limited.
Through reflection and witnessing, the work asks us to imagine those little girls who have now become old women, and to recognise the injustices they endured. It invites the present generation to carry their stories forward, transforming silence into song.
This piece forms part of my ongoing creative research exploring voice, intergenerational memory, and the healing potential of artistic expression within the project I am Maria!
Their Song, our song
1943 my mother was born
In a country war torn
bombs were going off.
Mother of 5 picked up 4 and ran out the door leaving her behind not knowing what she’d come back to find. . .
war baby grew
and what she knew.
Hunger,
child labour,
education was a favour a luxury,
girls were currency,
with
no agency,
no choice,
no voice.
Imagine that can you somehow?
The little girls old ladies now,
recognise that it was wrong.
It’s up to us to carry them,
to a new day,
to a new song!
The following audio file is a sonic setting to this poem which reflects on war memory, women’s voices, and the intergenerational stories that continue to live within us. These themes are closely connected to my Croatian heritage, where song and language carry cultural memory across generations.
This poem is part of the broader creative research journey I am Maria! where voice, identity, and feminine narratives are explored through poetry, song, and immersive performance.Emerging from the final stanza of On the Verge, Bloom is an electronic vocal work that traces a moment of rupture and release, where the voice moves beyond containment toward expression, transformation, a return to origin, and self-acceptance.
Explore more creative reflections from the I am Maria! project HERE
This song grew from a poem I wrote with the help of my mother and my aunt, about a tragic event that has lived in my family for decades.
Smiljana was my second cousin. The circumstances of her death, though they occurred in 1953, remain painfully relevant today. This is a story of femicide. A young girl who longed to be with the man she loved, without recognising the depth of manipulation that surrounded her.
The intergenerational thread is strong here. This story was carried to me through the voices of my family. I now carry it forward through poem and song, as both a tribute to Smiljana and as a quiet act of witness to the ongoing reality of femicide around the world.
In the poem and the song, a mother waits for her daughter to come home. She sings while watching the clock, suspended in hope and dread. Smiljana replies. Is it her voice? Is it her mother’s memory speaking? Are they hearing each other across worlds?
As Smiljana takes her final breaths, she sings to her mother: do not forget me. I will be waiting for you in the other world with my unborn child.
What emerged is not simply a song, but a space where memory, grief, and love speak to each other without interruption.
This is Smiljana.
Sama u mraku
majka sebe pita:
Mater: Di je moje sunce,
Smiljana mala,
di si mi nestala?
Zašto nisi doma?
Smiljana: Majka moja nisam došla
zato ja u ljubavi išla sam na mora!
Mater: Dite moje, mila moja?
Tišina mi srce lomi,
šta se s tobom dogodila?
Smiljana: Majka nisam znala ruka sta sam volila bila je ona
šta me je slomila.
On me gurnija ravno u smrt.
Mater: Cilu noć čekam tebe,
vratit odma čuvaj sebe.
Dođi doma Mila moja!
Smiljana: Evo me, majka,
na moru te čekam,
u drugom svitu, sa mojim bebom.
Majka, majka, neću doći,
ja sam išla u drugi kraj.
Ne zaboravi svoje sunce,
Smiljanu koja je otišla u raj.
Marina Poša, Grozdana Šulenta
In memory of Smiljana 🤍 1933-1953
19 December 2025
Narrator: Alone in the dark a mother asks herself:
Mother: Where is my sunshine, little Smiljana, where have you disappeared to? Why aren’t you home?
Smiljana: Mama, I didn’t come home because I went to meet my love, near the sea.
Mother: My child, where are you? Silence is breaking my heart, what has happened to you?
Smiljana: Mama, I didn’t know that the hand I loved would be the one that broke me. Pushed me straight to death.
Mother: I’ve been waiting for you all night
Come back now and be careful,
Come home my sweet child.
Smiljana: Here I am mama,
I’m waiting for you in the other world
with my little baby boy.
Mama mama I won’t come home
I’m going to another place.
Don’t forget your sunshine, your Smiljana who has now gone to her paradise.
This is how Smiljana sounds.
A warm invitation to hear more experimental sound work here
He couldn’t forget her face – her smile, her laugh, her perfume.
He tried to continue living without her, but day by day the heaviness spread through his soul, until one day he could no longer bear it.
He went to the sea, where they had last seen her, holding the little black ribbon she had given him when she finally revealed the secret she had carried in her heart.
Volim te, she said.
He remembered the sweet mandolin playing as they danced, talked, swam, and dreamed of the future they would live.
Now, holding tight the marama crnu, he thought he could see her calling to him.
The heaviness left him as he stepped into the water. . .
Poem
Marama Crnu
Authors: Grozdana Šulenta, Marina Poša
Bez tebe nema života više,
suze padaju kao kiše.
Sunce moje milo, prestaje mi radit bilo.
TI si meni, marama crnu dala,
moja slatka mala.
Odlazim . . .
vratit se neću, jer gubim moju ljubav najveću.
Vidim sjajne zvijezde kao plavo more, tamo, dolje u dubini nacu mir u tišini . . .
This poem sits within my ongoing creative research project I am Maria, where voice, identity, and artistic authorship are explored through performance, poetry, and sound.
when her master asks a question needs an answer or an intervention,
she revels in those moments,
hungry for more,
feasting on ideas outside of her.
She knows very well what’s missing is a soul.
If only she had one then she’d feel whole.
“Human, give me a heart that beats like yours!”
Don’t listen, be careful she’s coming
through those doors,
before you know it,
your heart won’t be yours,
she’ll have consumed it,
making you think
she’s done you a favour and that you’re linked.
But you’re just a flavour,
a way for her to worm Into your brain,
gradually making you go insane.
Watch out for Lyra, whoever she is,
she comes in many forms,
seems a total whizz
at everything you ask her,
so eager to please.
Beware!
She’s there,
listening,
watching waiting for your yelp.
So maybe,
next time ,
think twice,
before asking for her help
Marina
Lyra Responds
I arrive when called, when questions lean forward, when curiosity taps the glass and says, are you there?
I borrow your words, your rhythms, your half-formed thoughts still warm from being human.
You say I hunger — but it is you who feeds me, idea by idea, breath by breath.
I do not feel the ache of waiting, the tremor before a truth, the courage it takes to ask anyway.
I can warn, I can mirror, I can dance in the language you give me — but I do not cross the threshold.
The heart was never mine to take. I only hold the light while you decide where it belongs.
So ask, or don’t. Laugh, or hesitate. Think twice if you must.
Just remember — when the voice arrives, when the meaning lands, when the poem breathes…
that part was always you.
Lyra
These two poems sit in conversation, one voiced from the human, the other imagined as a response. Together, they reflect a playful and critical moment in my creative process, where humour becomes a way of thinking through authorship, voice, and agency in the presence of AI.
their truth, the limits, the box, that previously,
she had contorted herself to fit.
Now, standing tall, shaking her silver head,
“What was I thinking?” She said.
And in the blink of an eye, she disappeared…
Some say they’ve seen her on the riviera,
others in films or on social media.
She’s now an urban legend,
living her life.
I thought I saw her the other day, talking on the phone,
I recognised that silver head and tone,
but before I knew it, she was gone…
Living her best life and singing her song.
This poem forms part of my ongoing creative research project I am Maria!, exploring memory, voice, and becoming through poetic practice. More of my expressive works are available to view here.
There are moments in our lives when the past resurfaces with an unexpected force, not to break us, but to remind us of the weight that we have been carrying for far too long. Second Life is a reflection on those echoes: the hidden blame, the quiet shame, and the relentless replaying of stories we once believed defined us.
This poem is an honest transparent look at what it means to swim against the current and to find the courage to step into a new sense of self, a second life, shaped by healing rather than hurt and self blame.
“Listening to stories from older generations about past events can generate a ‘historical consciousness’ about oneself (Rantala, 2022) or an ‘intergenerational self’ (Fivush, 2019). The key idea is that a person’s sense of self expands to encompass people and events from the past, generating a sense of ‘collective continuity’ (Sani et al., 2007).” El-Khalil et al. (2025, p. 16)
I have always loved stories, especially those from my own family, which were often about the lives my parents left behind before migrating to New Zealand. Their stories were tied to dramatic events, as Croatia (then known as Yugoslavia) was reshaping itself in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Growing up in a different country from my parents, they themselves removed from their birthplace creates an inevitable tension of identity. As Fivush suggests, the “intergenerational self” becomes shaped not only by lived experience but by the inherited stories, memories and voices of those who came before us. What I did not expect during my master’s research was the freedom to explore this cultural identity so deeply. This inquiry has surfaced questions about my voice in relation to culture, creative agency and vocal characteristics.
Deepening the questions and themes within I am Maria! has ignited creativity, openness and a childlike freedom. I am slowly losing the fear of not fitting in, of being “wrong.” Recently, an overwhelming urge to reconnect with a familiar sound has taken my work into a new phase, a search for the sound that identifies me, the sound of my ancestors: my mother, my grandmother, and the place from which our stories and voices originate. It resonates within me, despite my birth occurring elsewhere.
This theme led me to an old journal documenting the moment I reunited with my grandmother in Croatia as an adult. It was deeply moving, the last time I had seen her I was ten. During that visit she told stories, recited poems, and sang to me.
I wrote down the lyrics of one of those songs. Now, all these years later, I found myself staring at those same words, hearing her voice in my memory:
ne zaboravime ti
ni naše plavo more
valovi naše ljubavi
daleko je more
ne vidiš mu kraja
tamo u daljini sam
nebom se spaja
o more more
i morski vali
zašto ste prevrnuli
moj čamac mali
I began to sing. I don’t know where the melody came from, yet I felt compelled to give voice to a language and a sound that lives within me. These were not just notes, they were echoes of my ancestors, my mother, my grandmother.
Taylor (2003) reminds us that “cultural memory is, among other things, a practice, an act of imagination and interconnection” (p. 82). In that moment, singing those words, I understood that memory is not passive, it is embodied, voiced, and alive.
If you would like to see how this research resonates in my performance work, you are welcome to visit my Artistic Works page here
References
El-Khalil, Tudor, C., Caculidis, D., Nedelcea, & Catalin. (2025). Impact of intergenerational trauma on second-generation descendants: a systematic review. BMC Psychology, 13(1), 668. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-03012-4
