Pilar of Salt by Ana Glendža

As one can die in a dream,

Can a person also forget there,

Wake up in the morning empty and pure,

Smile to oneself in the mirror, instead of judging?

Can the autumn breath bring peace to a man,

If it strips the branches and wets the earth?

Or does peace arrive while he gazes at a distant star,

Standing still, while in his mind he crosses who knows how many miles?

Can a person who bares himself

to others

avoid becoming a pillar of salt?

To die in a dream,

in the same one forget oneself,

and be born again,

awakened from others’ thoughts.

Can a person live that way?

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Ana Glendža was born on January 16, 2001, in Cetinje. She graduated in Psychology in 2023 at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Montenegro, where she also enrolled in master’s studies the same year. She is currently in the final phase of her master’s program, working on her thesis titled “Diabetes as a Risk Factor for the Development of Depressive Symptomatology.”

She approaches poetry spontaneously – she writes when it finds its way to her. She perceives verse as a possibility to express those parts of herself she does not reveal to others, but also as a path to self-discovery, since through writing she often uncovers what she had not known before. She believes that the written word holds healing power – both for the author and the reader. Each poem, in her view, carries a fragment of the personality of its creator, while the reader has the freedom to discover new meanings and open the doors within themselves.

She is a member of the Association Young Artists of Culture.