Some met her while she was asking for forgiveness for her crumpled thoughts, others cried with her in the land of peasants in the hilly Balkans, and many, just like her, loved and wanted two eyes.
But everyone has one thing in common - in the Balkans, everyone, whether a fan of poetry or not, at some point in their life encountered the lyrics of Desanka Maksimović.
Her literary work, both poetic and prose, is among the most extensive works of Serbian literature of the 20th century, and her poetic creativity is the most significant achievement of a woman in Serbian literature, according to Svetlana Šaetović, research associate at the Institute of Literature and Art in Belgrade.
"She did not belong to any trend, she had an authentic expression - between traditional and modern poetic patterns and she remained consistent with her own vision of the world, which was very little influenced by some social events and trends in literature," says Šaetović, manager of the Desanka Maksimović Foundation, for the BBC in Serbian.
During her seven-decade-long career, she published more than 50 collections of poems.
"Poems came to her, they were born in her, as if someone dictated to her and she never refined them, maybe later when she wrote sonnets, but the poems themselves were born just like that," Branislav Milakara, her cousin, told the BBC in Serbian.
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Eternal interlocutor of nature and love
Many generations grew up with verses like "happiness is only beautiful while waiting" and "mown meadows that dream by the river".
"She remains the eternal interlocutor of nature and love, with whom young people and adults and new generations who deal with literature talk," says Mina Đurić, assistant professor at the Department of Serbian Literature at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade.
He says that "students often choose her poems to recite, to interpret and relate them to other poetic achievements with examples."
"Whether it evokes memories of the earliest childhood or provides answers to some key historical questions - they devote themselves thoroughly to it, especially when it comes to the pursuit of universal values".
Three years ago, the proposal that the poetry of Desanka Maksimović was excluded from the high school curriculum caused great indignation,
The Association of Writers of Serbia saw the proposal as declaring Desanka Maksimović "a low-class poet in Serbian schools".
Letters of protest also reached the Ministry of Education, and users of social networks "asked for a pardon" for Desanka.
Her poems remained a mandatory part of school books and reading materials.
The writer herself was the target of criticism in the early 1990s because of the foreword she wrote for the book by the former Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, later accused of war crimes before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Zoran Božić says that she was already a "big name" so that it would be taken as a bad thing for her.
"Great poets always find a place under the sun, so I believe that Desanka's influence will always be present in our nation," says Milica Vuković, who started writing rhymes herself under her influence.
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Brankovina as an eternal inspiration
She was born at the end of the 19th century in Rabrovnica, near Valjevo, as the eldest child of father Mihail, a teacher, and mother Draginja.
The family quickly moved to Brankovina, and then to Valjevo, where Maksimović attended high school.
"Her professor was the then famous Sima Pandurović, a Serbian poet who recognized her talent and encouraged her to write.
"She published her first poem in 1920 in a magazine Misao, and four years later, the first collection, Songs", says Zoran Božić, curator of the Brankovina Museum, for the BBC in Serbian.
Although she moved to Belgrade, Valjevo, but above all Brankovina for her education, they remain, as Božić says, her eternal inspiration.
"She came constantly, held literary evenings, supported young poets, that's why Valjevci erected a monument to her during her lifetime.
"At first she was confused and resented the idea, but they explained to her that it would be a monument dedicated to poetry, with her image, so she somehow accepted it," says her fellow citizen Božić.
- Desanka Maksimović was born on May 16, 1898 in Rabrovica near Valjevo.
- She studied world literature, general history and art history at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade.
- For a year, she studied at the University of Paris as a scholarship recipient of the French government.
- She is the winner of numerous literary awards in the former Yugoslavia.
- Some of her most popular songs are: A premonition, Anxiety, Spring song, A bloody fairy tale, I'm asking for a pardon i Mowed meadow.
- She died on February 11, 1993 in Belgrade, and was buried in Brankovina.
- The Government of Serbia decided to bury her with the highest state honors, and to establish a fund bearing her name, later renamed the Endowment.
- This institution preserves the memory of the poetess and annually awards a lifetime achievement award to poets of Serbian literature.
Songs were her children
In 1933, Maksimović married the Russian writer Sergej Slastikov, who emigrated to Serbia after the First World War.
They met one evening while she was reciting poems in a Russian club in Belgrade.
"Was it love at first sight? Probably! But, for sure, my first love and the first man I kissed.
"I was already a mature girl. Later we got closer," she said Maksimovic to the journalist of the weekly NIN.
Božić says that they lived harmoniously and quietly.
"Intimacy was strictly guarded, she wrote, he translated and illustrated and helped her translate poems into Russian.
They had no children, and Maksimović said that she "lived her motherhood" taking care of her brothers and sisters as the eldest "until they became their own people".
"And later, in marriage, my creative work filled me whole. If I were to write one song, it would be as if I had given birth to three children. I would be so worn out...", said the poetess.
Her cousin says that the writer was his "second mother".
"My father was injured, and after the end of the Second World War, we came to her as refugees from Croatia.
"She waited for us at the Topčider station and so my mother, grandmother, my sister and I were with her in a two-room apartment and she followed our growing up, childhood, and still had time for herself," he remembers.
In the morning, Desanka would go to the Belgrade picnic area Ada Ciganlija to walk and write, and then she would return to "real life", says Milakara.
"When I start writing, the first condition is to be alone. Because then something happens, I don't know how to explain it...
"Inventing something new that awakens in me," said Maksimović in an interview with the weekly NIN, one of the last interviews with journalists.
'She evoked the most delicate human trait'
Desanka Maksimović welcomes the beginning of the Second World War in retirement.
Although she put away the professor's journal, she didn't put pen and paper away.
Affected by the shooting of students in Kragujevac in 1941, she wrote A bloody fairy tale, a song that will be published after the end of the war.
"That song was recorded, not written. There was a feeling of hatred and revolt in me...
"When I heard what happened in Kragujevac, the song was born in me," she said writer decades later.
Šaetović believes that these verses are "her deepest and most powerful response to what happened in Šumarice, and in addition to a number of other songs, they stand out simply as a medallion of her poetic oeuvre that will resist all evaluations that come and go".
Đurić says that the verses "about the hilly Balkans and a group of students who died in one day" are studied by many peoples today, which speaks of the universal character of the poem and the strong values that are woven into this literary work.
The poet became a regular member in 1965 Serbian Academy of Science and Arts, which made very proud.
A year earlier, her collection of poems was published I'm asking for a pardon.
"The collection is a poetic breakthrough that combines contemporary poetic expression and the legacy of certain lexical constructions that were valid for the medieval period and where it talks about the rights of all those who are marginalized in some way," says Šaetović.
Đurić assesses that the poet addressed "her innermost self, striving for a kind of balance and peace that she wanted to achieve through writing."
"On the other hand, her words were addressed to every man equally - to that which is innocent to him, which is in a certain way misunderstood, and should be manifested."
"She awakened in them that most subtle human trait, all that is the deepest and most subtle in every person," says Đurić.
Inspiration for young poets
Milica Vuković's poems Anxiety i Spring song introduced to the world of poetry by Desanka Maksimović.
"Not only because they talked about love, nature, freedom, but reading her poems, I had the feeling that the poetess understands me and that she goes through all these 'youthful sorrows' with me."
"I think she was close to me subconsciously, and due to the fact that she is a woman, we mostly read male writers at the time," says Vuković, who now lives in Vienna, where she graduated from comparative literature.
The time in which Maksimović lived shows "how revolutionary she was", she assesses.
"A woman who wrote about the often dark life around her is a symbol of strength, freedom and uniqueness in the literary sense," adds this 28-year-old.
Like Milica, Viktor Janković from Belgrade also read I'm nervous at school, but his first association with the poetess with the hat and string of pearls is the lyrics of the poem Our secret.
"Before I told my friends that I was gay, I used to talk about the guy I liked in the feminine gender, and I immediately recognized myself in these verses.
"That song really hit me, especially the parts 'I won't tell people about you, I won't tell them whether you were just an acquaintance or a dear friend'," says Janković.
He still comes back to the lyrics, but with different emotions - instead of pain and sadness, he is now permeated by a beautiful set.
"It's as if all the loves she wrote about were forbidden, unacceptable at the time she wrote, or maybe she perceives them that way through her prism.
"It's great to be afraid of a person we like and their approach, but it seems to me that there is much more to it than that, as if there is a fear of personal contact with that person - a fear that the environment will not find out about that contact," he adds.
'A temperament rarely seen'
Desanka Maksimović's last collection was published in 1992.
"There wasn't a day when he didn't pick up a pen, sit down and write.
"She didn't waste time even in moments when she was sad because of the death of her mother or husband, she didn't relax, she picked up a pen and translated other poets," her cousin recalls.
In addition to writing, she occasionally translated, mostly poetry from Russian, Slovenian, Bulgarian and French.
"Everything she did, she did passionately, with a lot of enthusiasm, with strong emotions.
"She was a person who lived in such a way as not to endanger others, persistent in realizing her idea, but never at the expense of others," Milakara remembers.
Zoran Božić remembers her fellow citizen as a gentle, calm and eternally smiling woman.
"He remains one of the favorite historical, literary figures, a temperament rarely seen and unprecedented energy," he describes.
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