A minute with Maria Siakalli, poet
Source: Cyprus Mail
Where do you live?
I live in Nicosia with two dogs, Telios and Lily, and two cats, Tryfonas and Maggie.
What did you have for breakfast?
Banana and almonds.
Describe your perfect day.
With my loved ones and my four-legged children, on an excursion to the mountains and a picnic beside a river.
Best book ever read?
The Missing Piece Meets the Big O by Shel Silverstein. I read it for the first time when I was 16 and since then I read it again when I feel muddled either in my relationship with myself or in my relationships with others. This never happens in my relationships with animals 🙂 It is a seemingly simple book with short dialogues and pictures, but it hides within great wisdom.
Best childhood memory?
The first time I went out alone to play in the neighbourhood with other children, when I was five. I still remember the sense of freedom the absence of supervision by an adult gave me.
What is always in your fridge?
Fruit and vegetables.
What music are you listening to in the car at the moment?
Classic and rock.
What’s your spirit animal?
The wolf, because it can survive and flourish in a pack and alone.
What are you most proud of?
That I have been vegan for ten years.
What movie scene has really stayed with you?
The scene where Anthony Hopkins cohabitates with the gorillas in Instinct. I first watched it in 2000, when I was 20 years old, and it seemed to be the most natural way of life, far from that of modern man. I still believe this.
If you could pick anyone at all (alive or dead) to go out for the evening with, who would it be?
Women who fought for the rights of all women. If I had to chose one, it would be Simone de Beauvoir.
If you could time travel when/where would you go?
To Constantinople in the 1940s, when it still maintained its cosmopolitan character.
What is your greatest fear?
To lose myself.
What would you say to your 18-year-old self?
Life is much more beautiful when we accept any end as something natural and not a tragedy.
Name the one thing that would stop you dating someone.
If that person were a racist, homophobic, nationalist, speciesist.
If the world is ending in 24 hours, what would you do?
I would try to live my perfect day.
Maria is a published poet and the co-founder of Baranga Publications, a bicommunal, bilingual publishing house. Her collection Başıboş (Adespoti in Greek) was published in 2022. She teaches Turkish language and Turkish and Turkish Cypriot literature at the University of Cyprus. Maria also researches literature, peace and bicommunal activity in Cyprus and translates Turkish literature into Greek and vice versa.
The original article: belongs to Cyprus Mail .
