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y separately published work icon An Embroidery of Old Maps and New selected work   poetry  
Issue Details: First known date: 2021... 2021 An Embroidery of Old Maps and New
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'I can see how I carry Yiayia’s war
in the ample dunes of my belly,
the moment she smelt the guns,
she pinched the candle’s wick,
gathered the startled shadows of her children,
flung my baby-mother onto her back
and sprinted towards the neutral moon—'

'Migration and the memories of women’s traditions are woven throughout these poems. Angela Costi brings the world of Cyprus to Australia. Her mother encounters animosity on Melbourne’s trams as Angela learns to thread words in ways that echo her grandmother’s embroidery. Here are poems that sing their way across the seas and map histories.'

Source : publisher's blurb

Notes

  • Author's note:

    To Eleni Costi

    who taught me the significance of the past

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • North Melbourne, Flemington - North Melbourne area, Melbourne - North, Melbourne, Victoria,: Spinifex Press , 2021 .
      image of person or book cover 7907768927852174394.jpeg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 96p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published March 2021.
      ISBN: 9781925950243

Works about this Work

[Review] An Embroidery of Old Maps and New Alison Clifton , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: StylusLit , March no. 11 2022;

— Review of An Embroidery of Old Maps and New Angela Costi , 2021 selected work poetry

'Angela Costi’s An Embroidery of Old Maps and New charts a process of mapping human interactions through embroidery. Costi is part of the Cypriot-Greek diaspora, and her grandmother used her embroidery skills to rise above poverty before she moved to Melbourne. There, Costi’s mother and sisters worked the machines at a sewing factory. In 2009, Costi travelled to Japan to work with the Stringraphy Ensemble, so it might not be too great a leap of the imagination to liken the stitches of Costi’s verse to sashiko, Japanese embroidery. Sashiko takes on a form distinct from European embroidery traditions in the movements required to create the stitches. Sashiko literally means “little stabs,” and, indeed, there are little stabs to the heart to be found and felt among the rich poetry in this collection.'  (Introduction)

Review of ‘An Embroidery of Old Maps and New’ by Angela Costi Gemma White , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Editor's Desk - 2021 2021;

— Review of An Embroidery of Old Maps and New Angela Costi , 2021 selected work poetry
Reviews An Embroidery of Old Maps and New by Angela Costi George Mouratidis , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , December no. 27 2021;

— Review of An Embroidery of Old Maps and New Angela Costi , 2021 selected work poetry

'In some topoi of poesy lore, it is believed that the first iteration of Homeric oral verse as a material text was woven by women on a loom – deft fingers spinning, immortalising epic tales. In the Odyssey, an abandoned Penelope sits at her loom, creating, then destroying, her tapestries, waiting for her husband Odysseus’ return to Ithaca from his decade-long voyage. Angela Costi reveals a honed, acute awareness of the traditions, epics, journeys, traumas, travails and triumphs that shaped and brought her to write the existential topography that is her latest collection of poetry, An Embroidery of Old Maps and New (Spinifex, 2021). In these pages, the poet is at once Penelope and Odysseus – speaks as weaver and voyager, sufferer and seeker. But here, when the poet takes up the thread, she does not tear; she tenderly and compassionately unwinds and uncovers those stories, people and worlds in which she recognises who, how and why she is, and in so doing, she reconnects, remakes.'  (Introduction)

Bold yet Subtle : Vasilka Pateras Reviews ‘An Embroidery of Old Maps and New’ by Angela Costi Vasilka Pateras , 2021 single work
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , 5 5eptember no. 32 2021;

— Review of An Embroidery of Old Maps and New Angela Costi , 2021 selected work poetry

'There is a majesty about Angela Costi’s new poetry collection, An Embroidery of Old Maps and New, in a weave of words that elevates the simple into an artful epic of beauty, dignity and a persistent quest for justice. At the heart of this collection is the question of legacy – a dedication to her mother Eleni and grandmothers who are each background and foreground, as practitioners of the Cypriot lace-making tradition Lefkarathika, to a detailed exploration of the human condition. The collection poses the question of how does a woman poet immersed in two worlds, as the Greek-Cypriot ‘migrant daughter’, divided by hemispheres lay her ideas about the world as witness, inheritor and storyteller?' (Introduction)

The Threads of Inheritance : Berni M Janssen Launches ‘An Embroidery of Old Maps and New’ by Angela Costi Berni M. Janssen , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , March no. 31 2021;

— Review of An Embroidery of Old Maps and New Angela Costi , 2021 selected work poetry
The Threads of Inheritance : Berni M Janssen Launches ‘An Embroidery of Old Maps and New’ by Angela Costi Berni M. Janssen , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , March no. 31 2021;

— Review of An Embroidery of Old Maps and New Angela Costi , 2021 selected work poetry
Bold yet Subtle : Vasilka Pateras Reviews ‘An Embroidery of Old Maps and New’ by Angela Costi Vasilka Pateras , 2021 single work
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , 5 5eptember no. 32 2021;

— Review of An Embroidery of Old Maps and New Angela Costi , 2021 selected work poetry

'There is a majesty about Angela Costi’s new poetry collection, An Embroidery of Old Maps and New, in a weave of words that elevates the simple into an artful epic of beauty, dignity and a persistent quest for justice. At the heart of this collection is the question of legacy – a dedication to her mother Eleni and grandmothers who are each background and foreground, as practitioners of the Cypriot lace-making tradition Lefkarathika, to a detailed exploration of the human condition. The collection poses the question of how does a woman poet immersed in two worlds, as the Greek-Cypriot ‘migrant daughter’, divided by hemispheres lay her ideas about the world as witness, inheritor and storyteller?' (Introduction)

Reviews An Embroidery of Old Maps and New by Angela Costi George Mouratidis , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , December no. 27 2021;

— Review of An Embroidery of Old Maps and New Angela Costi , 2021 selected work poetry

'In some topoi of poesy lore, it is believed that the first iteration of Homeric oral verse as a material text was woven by women on a loom – deft fingers spinning, immortalising epic tales. In the Odyssey, an abandoned Penelope sits at her loom, creating, then destroying, her tapestries, waiting for her husband Odysseus’ return to Ithaca from his decade-long voyage. Angela Costi reveals a honed, acute awareness of the traditions, epics, journeys, traumas, travails and triumphs that shaped and brought her to write the existential topography that is her latest collection of poetry, An Embroidery of Old Maps and New (Spinifex, 2021). In these pages, the poet is at once Penelope and Odysseus – speaks as weaver and voyager, sufferer and seeker. But here, when the poet takes up the thread, she does not tear; she tenderly and compassionately unwinds and uncovers those stories, people and worlds in which she recognises who, how and why she is, and in so doing, she reconnects, remakes.'  (Introduction)

[Review] An Embroidery of Old Maps and New Alison Clifton , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: StylusLit , March no. 11 2022;

— Review of An Embroidery of Old Maps and New Angela Costi , 2021 selected work poetry

'Angela Costi’s An Embroidery of Old Maps and New charts a process of mapping human interactions through embroidery. Costi is part of the Cypriot-Greek diaspora, and her grandmother used her embroidery skills to rise above poverty before she moved to Melbourne. There, Costi’s mother and sisters worked the machines at a sewing factory. In 2009, Costi travelled to Japan to work with the Stringraphy Ensemble, so it might not be too great a leap of the imagination to liken the stitches of Costi’s verse to sashiko, Japanese embroidery. Sashiko takes on a form distinct from European embroidery traditions in the movements required to create the stitches. Sashiko literally means “little stabs,” and, indeed, there are little stabs to the heart to be found and felt among the rich poetry in this collection.'  (Introduction)

Review of ‘An Embroidery of Old Maps and New’ by Angela Costi Gemma White , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Editor's Desk - 2021 2021;

— Review of An Embroidery of Old Maps and New Angela Costi , 2021 selected work poetry
Online Launch Set for Angela Costi’s Latest Collection of Poetry 2021 single work column
— Appears in: Neos Kosmos , April 2021;
Last amended 30 Aug 2023 08:25:48
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