The Tattooed Poets Project: Jennifer H. Fortin

<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Today's tattooed poet is <a href="http://www.jenniferhfortin.com/">Jennifer H. Fortin</a>, who shared this dragonfly tattoo on her back:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl7r3ZAJMxLcQLEXRztL6mSC8uMKzhjOuCLwnRFVh3EiltzwiRIa6e8r4vQXRpl82H2_K0mR0nyl5hnTdDkJaLo-dEqAixwxa8zmOHDRJM8cbP5WhvExa250cRlQNKWqBtVirXm8yZdrU/s615/Tattoo+One.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl7r3ZAJMxLcQLEXRztL6mSC8uMKzhjOuCLwnRFVh3EiltzwiRIa6e8r4vQXRpl82H2_K0mR0nyl5hnTdDkJaLo-dEqAixwxa8zmOHDRJM8cbP5WhvExa250cRlQNKWqBtVirXm8yZdrU/s640/Tattoo+One.jpg" width="418" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Jennifer tells us how this tattoo came to life:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Tina at </span></span><a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/inkers-electric-tattooing-derwood" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Inkers</a><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> (since renamed to the unfortunate 'Inkers Dream Wizard Tattooing'), a tiny shop on back roads in suburban Maryland, did the deed. I drew the design myself & brought it to her to use the summer I was 18, one day after my internship at the local City Hall. I paid cash & tipped well. A friend was supposed to come & sit with me while Tina worked, but she flaked, so I was there alone, which I ended up liking better anyway. I chose the dragonfly because when I was a kid, my mom used to tell me that if you’re talking & a dragonfly is nearby, it will sew up your lips. I kind of knew this </span></span><span style="line-height: 18px;">wasn't</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> true, but I also kind of knew it was true, somewhere or somehow else, even if only in our warm minds. I wanted to preserve & represent that feeling of simultaneous, balanced belief & disbelief.</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipN4nVONFYJJZjjyFRvduBJ4T-4AU6dh5vsGkpK-qsIAPKuarM20Ed4xMOkp7tqBJ-RhrTlOGvalZv6C2IFjsmoZZad8BWYc1XA1YTz5lRZLReH9Fy0CENkAdGtLTvnRg1Kr69YGcdXD4/s615/Tattoo+Close.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipN4nVONFYJJZjjyFRvduBJ4T-4AU6dh5vsGkpK-qsIAPKuarM20Ed4xMOkp7tqBJ-RhrTlOGvalZv6C2IFjsmoZZad8BWYc1XA1YTz5lRZLReH9Fy0CENkAdGtLTvnRg1Kr69YGcdXD4/s640/Tattoo+Close.jpg" width="478" /></a></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-size: small;">The tattoo is getting a little fuzzy now, as it approaches 14 years old, & I keep meaning to get it touched up, but I also like to see it change. My best friend got married in a Catholic ceremony when we were 26, & I asked her & her fiancé whether they’d like me to wear a sweater in the church (our bridesmaid dresses were strapless). They said it was thoughtful of me to ask, but that there was no need. Karen later said that guests kept coming up to her & saying what nice posture I had. Part of the reason I got the tattoo was because I </span>wasn't<span style="font-size: small;"> the type people would guess to have one. That I have one still surprises some people when it comes up, which I find amusing. Someone recently, at a rehearsal dinner for a different wedding, guessed correctly that I took French in high school, not Spanish, apparently from the way I comported myself. 'You can just<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6058251288236499429" name="_GoBack"></a> tell,' she said."</span></blockquote>Jennifer sent us this poem, which was first published in <i><a href="http://www.forkliftohio.com/index.php?page=inventory-24">Forklift, Ohio</a></i>:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Meditations on Distance in the Presence of Proximity</b></div><br />What I watch for in front of any painting is<br />whether or not & who will come between<br />us. I turn the applied over with my mind,<br />find glass & a bed in the place where glass<br />& a bed shouldn’t be. I invite anthropological<br />sensitivity. Maybe the painting is of two gravity<br />wells attached to a small, challenging body who began<br />reaching for you always ago. People: patience<br />with lovers. We know things heroes<br />& rulers don’t. We know that lowly powering<br />through the china shop & sticking our noses right in<br />the flowers, these are noticeable & worth touching<br />on. We react to ourselves as healthy organs,<br />on a reckless tour of each other’s normal<br /><br />flora & fauna, each other’s bacterial.<br />When someone sees the transparent leaves<br />pattern on your wall, when someone volunteers<br />not to mind the drive, he is in fact protecting<br />the spectacular. I wrote it down the night<br />the first sibling died so as the next morning not<br />to forget—you told me that was indeed a way.<br />Surely others end up wishing us beds,<br />wishing us the coveted side-by-side, shaded,<br />surely there is intuition of the huge energy<br />required, the harm it would do to magnetics,<br />for us to climb out of this one, to interrupt<br />us as we face the same thing together,<br />standing particularly close. Lustrous<br />& factual as obituary.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">~ ~ ~</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Jennifer H. Fortin’s first book of poems is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982955359/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0982955359&linkCode=as2&tag=bill03-20%22%3EMined%20Muzzle%20Velocity%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=bill03-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0982955359%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E">Mined Muzzle Velocity</a> (<a href="http://www.lowbrowpress.com/index.html">Lowbrow Press</a>, 2011). She lives in Upstate, New York. You can find her online at <a href="http://www.jenniferhfortin.com/">www.jenniferhfortin.com</a>.<br /><br />Thanks to Jennifer for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bill03-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=0982955359" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><br /></div><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoos are reprinted with the poet's permission.</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.</span>

The Tattooed Poets Project: Jennifer H. Fortin

Today's tattooed poet is Jennifer H. Fortin , who shared this dragonfly tattoo on her back: Jennifer tells us how this tattoo came to li...

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