grown girl

 “The essence that makes grown girl stand out can’t be distilled down to just one thing. Here, a confident voice, striking lines, unusual images and light touch all work together to create an interesting and insightful read. More than that though, this pamphlet is very relatable, very re-readable and casts both familiar and unfamiliar experiences in a new light.”

Sarah Leavesley, V. Press Prize judge

“Eleni is clever, subtly witty and honest to no fault. When poetry is this relatable, it reminds you how sharing your experiences can make another feel understood; although it’s shared and not the same, it makes you feel like you’re there again, but this time you’re not alone. Very powerful poetry.”

Jemima Hughes

Grown girl is very raw and very hopeful.

Winner of the V. Press Prize for Poetry 2025-26

ISBN: 978-1-0682701-1-6

32 pages

R.R.P. £7.50

A sample poem may be enjoyed below.

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Pink Vaseline

It is a stepping stone

for children yet to bleed, it is a treat

my mother told me, when you get your period

you can wear lipstick, no one expected this

child of baggy tees and puppy fat to be a woman

so soon, so when I bled at the barbeque, I hid

it till we got home, stuffed my floral shorts with sandpaper

loo roll, went back to being the goalie

hushed mothers whispered in the months that followed

only nine years old       Lydia’s daughter

already wearing bras        Lydia’s daughter

fills night pads in the day         Lydia’s daughter

only nine, already bruising and not yet

ripe, busy with sibling bath times and baby slings

the promised lipstick slipped my mind

he preferred lip gloss

balms that tasted of watermelon

topped with glitter, left flickering

on his cheeks, my girlhood was fingered lips

rose-tinted and moist

a slathering of woman over cracked skin

priding myself on the fecundity of hips and nipples but

betrayed by an empty pouch of potential

pregnancy, the age of my mother

on the days that she breastfed me

I wear dungarees and apply for mastectomy

funding, a back-pained flattener of daydreams

a creature more like her father than she’s ever been  

today I bought my girlhood in a tin, and it reminded me

that I am not a woman