Melissa Eleftherion's Strawberries (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Our next tattooed poet is Melissa Eleftherion:

Melissa tells us:

"...My strawberries ... were done over the course of two years by Karen Roze of Sacred Rose Tattoo in Berkeley, CA. She & I collaborated on the general design of the piece, and discussed ways Karen might integrate the strawberries with the nearly-20 yr old & slightly misaligned medicine ring I already had on my upper arm. A lesson to trust my instincts, the medicine ring was artfully designed but carelessly tattooed on me in the kitchen of a tattoo artist named Steve around 2am back when I was seventeen in Brooklyn, before tattooing was legal, before I learned to advocate for myself. My strawberries will always symbolize the many ways we can branch out from past traumas & pain to create beauty in the world. How we can make art from horror, and take little starts toward new growth and make spaces for healing. The strawberries are also a companion piece to those of my husband's whose fascination with strawberries alighted in me the possibility that kinship & love might just be possible."

Here is one of her poems, "little stem," which appeared originally in finery:

little stem

little combat flower

be strong in the overture

in the wave crash

too many shouting men

be strong be bold

yes yes

little feral light

moving

into

yes light

the wolf

the war

~ ~ ~

Melissa Eleftherion grew up in Brooklyn. She is the author of huminsect (dancing girl press, 2013), prism maps (dusie kollektiv, 2014), Pigtail Duty (dancing girl press, 2015), and several other chapbooks and fragments. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Bone Bouquet, Bukowski Erasure Poetry Anthology, Delirious Hem, Dusie, Entropy, Finery, Manifesting the Female Epic, Mom Egg Review, Open Letters Monthly, Poet as Radio, So to Speak, & TRUCK. She works as a librarian with Mendocino County Libraries, and created, developed, and currently manages the Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange. You can find her online at https://apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com/.

Thanks to Melissa for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

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