Suture - by Melissa Eleftherion (Paperback)

About the Book

Suture is a collection of erasure poems about excavating stuck traumas & shame to reshape or reclaim a narrative.

Book Synopsis

Suture is a collection of erasure poems about excavating stuck traumas & shame to reshape or reclaim a narrative. To tell a story that is hidden beneath the surface, revealing what must be revealed. Each poem works with a single page from one of three source texts by VC Andrews (Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, and My Sweet Audrina).

Review Quotes

"What a book! It's like a walk in the woods, wherein you overturn a rock and find all these tiny treasures. In Melissa Eleftherion's Suture, a series of erasures that examine "the abject," the speaker is "willing to let / silence / confess." Caesuras are heavy with mystery. Page space pulses with not-quite-stated knowledge that slowly reveals itself over the course of the poetic sequence. The speaker "knew a violent house." The antagonist "[is] tower & / tremble." Marriage is "blood in [a] glass of white worms." However the speaker is "a fugitive / in love with / being soft," and they are determined to stay that way, even if it requires forgiveness. Eleftherion has chosen an unusual way to tell a tale with this assemblage of poems, which just makes it all the more unforgettable."

- Jill Khoury, author of earthwork

"Melissa Eleftherion starts with "how we're taught / to contain / the abject" and takes us through a journey where "family / was / a/ secret war." These erasure poems depict a struggle through trauma, doubt, and worth to come out the other side "resolve[d] / to matter." Suture gives us a well-crafted, important narrative that will stay with us."

- David Harrison Horton, author of Necessary

A suture stitches a wound closed, but what is left after that wound heals-a scar? Or a memory? In this new collection, Melissa Eleftherion excavates the Flowers in the Attic series to tell her own story in spare, haunting poems (or ...sutures") that detail the lasting trauma of a violent childhood. Full of striking images, these erasures capture the loneliness of living with a secret and how only knowing love ...as a treacherous undercurrent" continues to shape the speaker. However, the speaker never gives up her search for awe and wonder, and vows to ...smash the glass box" while learning how to be soft and forgive. Through these many sutures, the wound heals but is not forgotten.

-Gina Myers, author of Works and Days

"In her third book, Eleftherion continues their study of the relationship between self and environment. Beginning with a metaphor of ammonite sutures - the seams that form between chambers of an ammonite's spiral shell - Eleftherion follows a child's perspective as their body and mind develop, leaving traces on the page. A subtle book excavated from the young adult horror novel Flowers in the Attic, Suture is haunted by the pathways of trauma and growth."

-Jessica Smith, author of How to Know the Flowers