Poem: That Was the Year I Wanted to Change My Name

That Was the Year I Wanted to Change My Name

I was twelve and in seventh grade. 

My mother and father called me Maria

with that very Italian inflection Mah ria. 

My brother and sister called me Mary, 

deciding at some point that Mary 

was the American equivalent of Maria, 

but I decided I needed to change my name, 

that Maria sounded foreign, 

that Mary signified a life I didn’t want —

plain, dull, and too Catholic.

It reminded me of the Blessed Virgin. 

I didn’t feel I could live up to her 

cool blue perfection, her face, purity

and grace floating above her blue cape

on the side altar at Blessed Sacrament Church.  

That year, I remember standing in the row 

between the desks talking to Camille.

Suddenly, I heard myself saying

I want everyone 

to call me Marie from now on 

and Marie it was that year, 

though as soon as I said it, 

the name didn’t feel right, 

like a sweater in a store window

that looks so exquisite but is uncomfortable

each time you wear it, even though  

you can’t determine why.  

Marie was like that.  

Years later, after I had been making friends 

call me Marie for a long time, 

I decided that Marie was a lower-class name 

A name for diner waitresses and beauticians 

and no more American than Maria or Mary. 

I wanted to fit in so desperately that I had given away 

my own true name, Maria, the one that really fits me,

the one with its Italian sound, 

the one I would now force everyone to use 

even when they wanted to call me Marie, 

the name I reclaimed the year when I discovered 

that changing your life starts with accepting the parts 

of your past you were so anxious to give away.

by Maria Mazziotti Gillan

Previously published in The Cartographer Electric (2008) and in Poet to Poet #3 NightWatch (The Seventh Quarry Press, Swansea, Wales, 2010)

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Maria Mazziotti Gillan's new poetry collection is When the Stars Were Still Visible (2021). Other recent publications are the poetry and photography collection, Paterson Light and Shadow and the poetry collections What Blooms in Winter and The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets which pairs her poems with her paintings.
Maria's artist's website is MariaMazziottiGillan.com and her poetry website is MariaGillan.com.