Author Archives: Costi Angela

Costi Angela

About Costi Angela

Angela's parents are from Cyprus; her father from the North and her mother from the South.

She studied in Greece and lived in Cyprus as part of a travel award received from the Australian National Languages and Literacy Board in 1993.

For close to 15 years, she has been freelancing as a writer, editor and community artist, which has involved being commissioned to write plays and poems for particular arts projects. She has three poetry collections, Dinted Halos, Prayers for the Wicked and Honey and Salt, which was shortlisted for the national Mary Gilmore Award 2008.

Recently, she was involved in an international collaboration which involved her poetry and musical composition by Japanese-based, Stringraphy Ensemble.

Women on the Rock

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Anna sees her Ancient Greek counterpart
sweetly shimmering in the sea’s spray
dressed in the delicate thread of sorrow
Ariadne, she calls, how can I ever let him go? Continue reading

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Peloponnese Sunset

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How can you be lonely, you make love to this
environment, the hills have slopes you can swoon on
they have views you can open your thighs to
they have Venetian structures ready for you to take Continue reading

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Making Lace

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I see her as I see me, sitting on chairs before the impact of our craft,
both intent on making a story out of a sequence, a gift out of repetition,
her stitch is my letter, her design is my phrase, Continue reading

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Craving

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by Angela Costi I’m being violated by smelly armpits, aftershave and perfume. The queue has turned into a mess of shirt sleeves, wailing children, hot faces, luggage and more luggage. A male voice yells out in Greek, “What the hell is going on!” No answer from the green uniforms behind the high counter. No answer but there’s a rumour that’s … Continue reading

Posted in Australia, English, Literature, Memoir, Travel | 4 Comments

From cold war to flower power

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by Angela Costi Her name is Aggeliki. She’s a woman of the 1950s. Even though she was born way before then and she’s still alive today, it was the 50s when the big choice was made. Her family or her country? If she was a politician it would have been her country. But she had become a mother. Some say … Continue reading

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Baby Watching

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His charcoal-blue eyes burn for knowledge, they sift the world in fragments, between the bars of the cot he sees half a mother, her hand reaching the door knob again her silent escape when the music still plays those ponderous notes − the room now holds one breath, he can turn this into a cry and bring her back, he … Continue reading

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The Blood Rose and the Artichoke Heart

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(for my Grandfather, Pappou Angeli) Epping: 20 stations too far from the city, where trains screech, The end of the line! (passengers prefer not to get off) where factory workers starve, where paddocks harvest wild thistles, horned weeds (daisy-fed cows are extinct) snakes graze, skinks bask, flies pester in gangs, where I scramble in towering, tough grass straggling behind Pappou’s … Continue reading

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Calliope’s Final Story

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(for my paternal and maternal grandmothers) Long ago, we grew babies like markets stock fruit so many, splendid, ripe, bruised. A mother nursed her garden from bed, five cots, if lucky, for eight or nine. One bosom became the village well ⎯ a wandering creek or waterfall suddenly escaped our flesh, a steady river gushed into a suckling mouth ⎯ … Continue reading

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