I am maria!

Tag: practice based research

  • Past her Prime

    Past her Prime

    They say I’m a woman”

    past her prime”who’s

    “run out of time”

    but,

    I have the ability to see the me,

    who was 20. . .

    Trapped in the loop of being the good girl,

    no mistakes allowed, trying hard,

    to make mama proud …

    then at 30. . . 

    It was the same.

    Playing that game, but now, I’m a mother,

    with another,

    other. . .

    Then came 40, still selflessly giving,

    then came 50, the reckoning. . .

    the veil lifted,

    clarity gifted,

    wont’t play the game,

    won’t be tame,

    won’t tone down,

    not going to stop,

    telling my story,

    even when they say,

    “you’ve had your day”

    “you look bad!”

    Oh, it just makes me mad!

    How dare they say,

    I’ve had my day!

    I’m not finished yet,

    I’ve earned the right, don’t you forget!

    They say, “she’s passed her prime”

    “run out of time”

    But honey, I’m only just getting started. 


    Look at me! 

    Look carefully!

    Take a picture if it helps you see!

    This is my time I’m moving into the light, 

    because it wasn’t right,

    what went on before,

    it’s time to open that other door,

    emerge from


    being told,

    “you’re too old”

    it’s “time to fade”

    They say I’m past my prime.

    But they’re wrong,

    It’s my time.

    I see the mirror,

    my reflection.

    It’s time now to reveal. . .

    The real

    The true

    The one and only. . .

    You.

    A warm invitation to learn more about I am Maria!

    What is I am Maria!

  • You Always Were My Little Angel

    You Always Were My Little Angel

    He said, “you always were my little angel,”

    in another time in another place,

    when I had another face,

    his little girl before. 


    The illness took his mind. He couldn’t find

    the essence of who he was.

    I tried and tried to see ,

    if he recognised me,

    everytime I went,

    the illness didn’t relent,

    It was sad,

    I wanted my Dad,

    but there was nothing we could do,

    he was hidden within the maze of the brain and he would never be the same.

    As time goes on and age sits in,

    I always think back to that day when,

    his eyes dim, looked at me to say,

    “You were always my little angel.”

    These poetic works emerge alongside the research, functioning as immediate expressions of voice, identity, and transformation.

    More Poems!

  • Smiljana

    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