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.
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.
Jasam bila malo dite, čista u scrcu! I was a little girl…
“I was a little girl, clean and pure in heart.”
This melody came to me in the midst of my research question:
How does the classically trained singer transform into a self-authored creative artist?
It emerged from deep questioning from reflection connected to my cultural heritage, my upbringing, and my identity as a singer and as a mature woman finding her place in the artistic and academic world.
There is something profoundly intergenerational in this song. Mother to daughter.
Aunt to niece.
Grandmother to granddaughter.
The grown daughters now sing: “I was a little girl, clean in my heart.”
At a time in the world where the binds of patriarchal structures limited our possibilities. Limited our education. Limited our careers. Limited how we were taught to be.
My own journey between classical singing and becoming a creative artist mirrors this construction.
One path says: Be precise.
Be correct.
Be contained.
The other says:
Explore.
Question.
Break form.
Be whole.
Jasam bila, malo dite is evidence of cultural transmission in another way too. I have never sung klapa. I have never freely harmonised within that tradition. Classical training does not teach that kind of instinctive communal sound.
When I first recorded this, I sent it to my aunt and asked if my Croatian was correct. She said it wasn’t because instead of malo dite, I sang mala dite.
Grammatically, she is right. “Malo dite” is correct but the word “mala” that is what I remember being called, that is how it lives in my body and sonically, I love the sound.
So, what is correct? The studied version? Or the lived one?
I find myself drawn to the “wrong” version.
It feels, fresh, raw, inspired.
Perhaps this too is part of my shift away from classical thinking? I do not have to be perfect anymore.
Two Versions
Lived, remembered, sung from body, raw
Studied, grammatically correct, refined
This recording begins with my aunt saying to my mother:
“Sing a little bit to Marina so she can sing it too.”
By adding this element I wanted to communicate how songs are passed on and how culture travels.
Not through perfection, but through repetition, imitation, affection.
Voice to voice. Woman to woman. Across time.
If this story resonates with you and you have ever felt the tension between what is “correct” and what is true, I invite you to explore more of my creative work, where voice, memory, and identity continue to unfold.
Do you care? is a continuing experiement in sound, creativity and freedom of expression.
This piece began as an act of people-watching, quietly observing the world and wondering whether we still care about one another.
A distant piano opens the work, as if someone is practising somewhere far away, before the sound shifts from a nostalgic, almost 1960s European atmosphere into abstraction and electronic textures. Sung and spoken in Italian and English, the piece ends on a single question: Do you care?
Our voice; the sound we make when talking or singing is deeply tied to identity. When you hear someone’s voice on the phone or in song, it is instantly recognisable. Yet one thing we rarely consider is how our own sense of identity can become obscured over a lifetime.
As children, we vocalise freely. Singing, crying, laughing, shouting, these are natural expressions of our being. But as we grow, change sets in. Puberty alters the body and the voice, shifting us into discomfort. For women, the body’s transformation is visible, while the voice’s change is often more subtle, yet equally profound.
My research into creative empowerment through my project I am Maria! has led me to question identity at many levels.
Who am I, really?
When did the classical training I received over my life begin to silence my true vocal identity, the voice of my mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, that lineage of women within me? Why did I let it happen?
As my investigation deepens, I am beginning to hear them again. Recently, I discovered my mother’s tone in my natural singing voice. I even heard traces of my grandmother. Now I ask, who else is in there? And why am I only allowing them to emerge now?
For years, I was the good student, obedient and eager to please, even when my voice felt strained or silenced. Each time I suppressed my own instinct to defer to authority, I handed over part of my identity. The teacher’s voice grew louder, while mine diminished, until I could no longer recognise myself within the sound I was making.
This is what happened to me.
The master-apprentice system, so ingrained in classical music, often breeds obedience disguised as respect. For women, this submission is even more acute, shaped by lingering patriarchal structures that dictate how we should sound, behave, and exist.
But what if your voice could simply be your voice? To sing with. To play with, however it wishes to emerge; freely, naturally, without constraint?
After a lifetime of study, I am realising that it is time to return to nature: to my true voice, and my true self.
From the moment our lives are conceived, we have already perceived what and who came before us. Later in life, we reenact many of their ways of being, embodying echoes of those who came before.
This may explain the inexplicable feelings we trundle around with throughout our lives: the feelings and perceptions about ourselves, how we see ourselves.
When I began my MPhil, using I am Maria! as a site of investigation, transforming the classical singer from interpreter to complete creative artist, messages I had missed previously within I am Maria! emerged, disrupting what I once thought was complete.
I remembered significant moments in my life: seeing my grandmother in Croatia and singing with her, hearing her voice.
Deeper meanings began to surface: intergenerational connections, the feelings and emotions that certain languages stir within. I found myself yearning at times to hear my mother’s voice speaking her mother tongue. I felt the need to explore those sounds myself, through singing, movement and spoken word.
My Baba all in black She sings beautifully, She really does. When I see her sing, I feel like I’m seeing myself. Then, There’s something extra... LOVE... That’s what she is. My Baba, all in black, Lines on her face that life wrote, Delicate bones, high cheekbones, A smile That makes you hope you started it. A million and one tales to tell, A million and one songs to sing.
Poem fromI am Maria! Author: Marina Poša, 2022
We are carriers of stories. The beauty of being human is the ability to express these stories through artistic creation, song, art, theatre, film and writing.
The stories we carry and finally share are, in truth, the stories of everyone. They forge connections of love and community. They say: “You matter. Your stories matter. So tell them.”
Our stories heal and reveal what it means to be human, the marvel that we are, and all that we can become.
Watch the video of poem from I am Maria! Confirmation here
As I continue my academic and creative journey, I find myself increasingly drawn to exploring greater freedom and authenticity through my singing voice.
I often wonder how I might access my natural, untrained voice , as distinct from my trained, classical one. To do so, I must consciously undo certain habits and expectations instilled through years of classical training, and learn to accept sounds that, to me, once seemed ugly or foreign. Yet these sounds are undeniably me , part of my vocal identity. My voice, my sounds, they carry my energy, my soul, and my story.
This process of creative and vocal exploration feels thrilling, yet I’ve long sensed that such experimentation seems more permissible for contemporary singers than for classical ones. When a classically trained singer ventures beyond the expected boundaries, it often seems to “not work” sonically or at least, that’s what we’ve been told.
Then, something exciting happened. A contemporary singer whose career I’ve followed for the past eight years, Rosalía, an artist with flamenco roots released a new album that beautifully merges classical and contemporary sound worlds. On it, she explores her own classical tone and technique, and it is utterly captivating.
In her New York Times interview, Rosalía says:
“Everything is in constant movement… why shouldn’t my sound change with me?”
Isn’t that the truth? Why shouldn’t our voices evolve as we do? Why are we so attached to definition, to labels, to the boxes we build around ourselves?
Throughout my life as a classical singer, I’ve heard the same cautions repeated:
“Don’t sing contemporary music, you’ll damage your voice.” “You’ll undo your classical technique.”
Has anyone else heard these reasonings?
Now, I feel even more determined to continue down this path of vocal and creative exploration to find out what else lives inside my voice, my body, my imagination.
More colours, more possibility, more storytelling await when I open myself to the next chapter of my sound.
This reflection is part of my ongoing creative research journey, I am Maria! An exploration of voice, identity, and transformation. Through song, story, and self-inquiry, I continue to listen for the voice that remembers, heals, and creates – Marina
When did the training I received for so many years become a cage, a limit to my own expressiveness? My artistic identity had become so entrenched in the idea of “Classical Singing” and “Opera” that I could see nothing else within me. I felt that I had nothing more to offer.
My artistic identity had beome so entrenched in the idea of “Classical Singing” and “Opera” that I could see nothing else within me. I felt that I had nothing more to offer.
Of course, this perception was false. As human beings, we are made of many layers of being; complex, shifting. When we begin to see ourselves in limited ways, those limits begin to spill into our lives and self-perceptions. We neatly categorise ourselves into little boxes, believing that safety lies in definition.
For me, this categorisation continued for many years. I tried to fit into the expectations of what “the voice” should be what I was taught it must be. My sense of self, intellect, and creativity became entangled and distorted along with my voice. Eventually, I reached a point where this could no longer be sustained.
Returning to an institution where I once experienced trauma and devastation has, years later, become an unexpected source of healing. Through the process of research and reflection, new questions continue to emerge, questions about identity, voice, and what it truly means to be free as an artist.
I share these reflections in the hope that they may help someone else on their own journey toward rediscovery.d voice meet to reveal what it means to be human, to heal, and to be heard.
#creative #awakening #artistic #research
[…] Link to Study I Love is a Bird […]
Thank you for your kind comment. I’m so pleased you enjoyed it 🙏
what a lovely poem and sentiment, thanks for sharing
Thank you so much 🙂
I’m so glad that you are finding your own voice and what an amazing voice it is
Our voice, the singing voice, the speaking voice is instantly recognisable. It is unique.
I’ve always been fascinated by it, by its mystery and power. The voice can trigger memory, awaken emotion, reveal truth. It can betray who is lying and who is sincere. The singing voice, in particular, bypasses all the layer, it is the most human and direct way of communicating, of telling a story, of feeling and being felt.
Over the years, I’ve studied my voice and traveled the world in pursuit of the dream to sing. Along the way, there were disappointments and detours. I missed cues, trusted the wrong mentors, and held on too long out of loyalty and the desire to please. I believed that if I were the “good student,” things would eventually fall into place. But the truth is, that unquestioning need to please was the very thing that held me back.
When I finally found a mentor who truly understood me who helped me reclaim my voice, it was too late for an opera career. But slowly, I began to realise that I could do more. I didn’t have to fit into the conventional mould. I could communicate through theatre, music, and voice in my own way, through my own truth.
I started writing, inventing, reconnecting with the part of myself I had lost the creative being, the storyteller.
In doing so, I discovered that to move forward, I would first have to face my past disappointments and vocal barriers to heal them rather than hide them. Little did I know that this journey would lead me to a Master of Philosophy in the very place once associated with my deepest vocal trauma.
Now, the Conservatorium has become a place of healing, reflection, and transformation. Through my studies, and through I am Maria! I continue to explore how the voice wounded and reborn can become a vessel of truth and change.
These insights, these reflections, I share here as markers of the path I’ve walked and as a gesture of hope for others who have experienced their own disappointments, silences, and transformations.
Because the world needs art. It needs song. It needs stories and it needs love. In the act of singing, of making music, we offer nourishment of another kind; food for the human heart.
So join me, as I use my performance work I am Maria! as a living site of investigation and transformation
a place where art, story, and voice meet to reveal what it means to be human, to heal, and to be heard.
#performance #research
[…] Link to Study I Love is a Bird […]
Thank you for your kind comment. I’m so pleased you enjoyed it 🙏
what a lovely poem and sentiment, thanks for sharing
Thank you so much :)
I’m so glad that you are finding your own voice and what an amazing voice it is
As I continue developing I am Maria! as both a performance and a site of research, these questions about voice, identity, and transformation become increasingly vital. What happens when the classically trained voice unlearns its boundaries and rediscovers its natural expression?
Our voice, the singing voice, the speaking voice is instantly recognisable. It is unique.
I’ve always been fascinated by it, by its mystery and power. The voice can trigger memory, awaken emotion, reveal truth. It can betray who is lying and who is sincere. The singing voice, in particular, bypasses all the layer, it is the most human and direct way of communicating, of telling a story, of feeling and being felt.
Over the years, I’ve studied my voice and traveled the world in pursuit of the dream to sing. Along the way, there were disappointments and detours. I missed cues, trusted the wrong mentors, and held on too long out of loyalty and the desire to please. I believed that if I were the “good student,” things would eventually fall into place. But the truth is, that unquestioning need to please was the very thing that held me back.
When I finally found a mentor who truly understood me who helped me reclaim my voice, it was too late for an opera career. But slowly, I began to realise that I could do more. I didn’t have to fit into the conventional mould. I could communicate through theatre, music, and voice in my own way, through my own truth.
I started writing, inventing, reconnecting with the part of myself I had lost the creative being, the storyteller.
In doing so, I discovered that to move forward, I would first have to face my past disappointments and vocal barriers to heal them rather than hide them. Little did I know that this journey would lead me to a Master of Philosophy in the very place once associated with my deepest vocal trauma.
Now, the Conservatorium has become a place of healing, reflection, and transformation. Through my studies, and through I am Maria! I continue to explore how the voice wounded and reborn can become a vessel of truth and change.
These insights, these reflections, I share here as markers of the path I’ve walked and as a gesture of hope for others who have experienced their own disappointments, silences, and transformations.
Because the world needs art. It needs song. It needs stories and it needs love. In the act of singing, of making music, we offer nourishment of another kind; food for the human heart.
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