An essay by Eleni Sikelianos
June 10, 2014 • 5.5 x 8.25 • 126 pages • 978-1-56689-360-2
A memoir of Melena, five times married, mother, burlesque dancer, and “the hardest-assed woman to ever eat wood and bite nails.”
This is the tale of Melena, five times married, mother of three, burlesque dancer, and “the toughest, hardest-assed woman to ever eat wood and bite nails.” Located in history and memory, the real and the imagined, her life cracks open questions of identity at the heart of an American, immigrant, woman’s experience. You Animal Machine offers a glimpse of both the violence and the beauty of the margins, where “outskirts make their own centers.”
About the Author
is the author of six books of poetry, most recently The Loving Detail of the Living and the Dead and The California Poem, which was a Barnes & Noble Best of the Year, as well as hybrid memoirs, The Book of Jon and You Animal Machine (The Golden Greek). Sikelianos teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Denver. A California native, longtime New Yorker, and world traveler, she now lives in Boulder with her husband, the novelist Laird Hunt, and their daughter, Eva Grace.
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