About Smiljana
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
