Anastasia Mendonca is a poet and English teacher, Greek Cypriot based in London. Her writing examines the ways experience shapes the self, often using the body and material imagery as a lens for memory, identity, and repair. Influenced by her work in education, her poetry is grounded in voice, narrative, and the transformative power of language. She is currently working towards her first publications.
Yiayia, where are you from?
Famagusta.
Shutters sealed.
Balconies watching no one.
Footsteps that stopped mid-road.
My heart still aches-
Dynasties crumble into dust,
Names fade from abandoned doors,
Souls wash out with the tide.
Yiayia, what is a ghost town?
Fam-a-gu-sta
An island remembers
Even when its people are told not to.
White sand stretches-
Once walked, once lived, once loved-
Now held in silence.
Victory used to echo here.
Now even the wind
Sounds like leaving.
Yiayia, are you okay?
A country that remembers
We do not laugh because we are small-
We were taught to stand straight,
Even when the walls were torn.
We do not speak of the wars,
Or the hands that drew borders
Through kitchens and churches and orders.
We carry it quietly –
In keys that open nothing,
In doors that no longer exist.
We do not speak ill –
Of the invaders or the caretakers
When we can reclaim what is ours
And give peace to our name
As we are not small.
The Village from a Distance
An ode of complaint
A country left with no escape
The uninterrupted white washed sands
That trail for thousands of miles
Was once peaceful land
Now, bludgeoned and bound.
Victory once echoed
A celebration of
OXI
An ill-fated love
A stone throws away
Now, bludgeoned and bound.
Poetry in this post: © Anastasia Mendonca
Published with the permission of Anastasia Mendonca