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[FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE]
April 27th, 2026
(Porto, North Portugal, Portugal)
Interview about the poem, "Priestess of Games," with poet from Portugal, Maria Carbunaru. The poem is published and can be read in Europe Poetry Magazine.
"Priestess of Games" represents Portugal as a Finalist in the Poetry World Cup 2026.
Photo by Maria Carbunaru.
What are some interesting or important aspects of this work, how it came to be, or what it means, that you want people to know?
This poem brings playfulness and ritual when navigating times of uncertainty and loss. It came to be during the years following a leap of faith I made in 2020 when I was accepted into the Improvisation Theatre School in Calgary. After months of preparation and closing various chapters of my life in Romania, I was suddenly unable to enter Canada, as the country had closed its borders to non-citizens due to the pandemic.
I decided to improvise and come to Portugal for four months, expecting the borders to reopen. The School took place 3 years later, after the return of Covid waves, 3 years in which I have been plunged into uncharted territories both outside and within myself.
“The Priestess of Games” came out of ashes, as a memo of sorts, for those moments when feeling most lost, when powerlessness and agency took turns on the stepping stones of what turned to be a wild, wild river. It became a reminder about the silky voice within that I can count on when all my other faculties get overwhelmed, about what still stands when the door of destiny swings between getting a new social security number and the available sacredness of a park bench. I use it now and then to notice the tension of opposites within and remember they both have the potential to bring me home.
This is for the immigrant, for the wanderer, for the one who answers to the call and finds herself in unknown lands.
How does your city / region and your natural surroundings influence this creative work, and your artistic practice as a whole?
At the beginning, people asked me: why Portugal. I couldn’t give a practical answer; there was something “here” that called me since I’ve made a solo trip from Faro to Guimaraes in 2018. To this day, I keep discovering what it means to be here.
Something about how the sun and the long rainy winters play cards with each other in Porto, about the tapestry of details hidden in thin layers of conversations, how feelings and longings float “unsaid” between families and friends, asking me to be truly curious if I were to decipher them.
I found a forest or a park near each of the houses where I lived during the 5 years, where I would write, do New Moon rituals, and bury sunflower seeds as intentions for Spring Equinoxes.
There was also a welcoming space here for connecting to a layer of existence that goes beyond the visible. I don’t think I could truly get used to living in a country that doesn’t have “ervanarias” where I can refill my Hypericum jars at the end of the month.
My love for cultural anthropology and ancient knowledge could connect with the contemporary living here, and stay alive even in our western society that leans more towards the profane time than the sacred, as the Romanian world religions historian, Mircea Eliade put it: “Objects or acts acquire a value, and in so doing become real, because they participate, [...] in a reality that transcends them.”
Read this poem:
Read the poem, "Priestess of Games"
More about Maria Carbunaru:
www.meadows.today/founder
Keywords: ritual, contemporary, initiation, adulthood, play
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