Tattoosday (A Tattoo Blog)

The Tattooed Poets Project: Shannon Phillips

Today's tattooed poet is Shannon Phillips. She has five tattoos, none of which are in color. All of them are on her back. She sent us a few photos so we could appreciate them: <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX1U6h3CvCU1LWQbTUDezkZqTTj4OghyDYFw_M2NoJvI2OwGFYPOig9oPrWML7_szMpkZst6BDNZEWTh_VYXQfbWx8YPYRg5i0ui7gOGUSxEm1zXFKPzdVUgQu-H9TiSVPtsJk6jQ5weI/s1600/Shannon+Back.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX1U6h3CvCU1LWQbTUDezkZqTTj4OghyDYFw_M2NoJvI2OwGFYPOig9oPrWML7_szMpkZst6BDNZEWTh_VYXQfbWx8YPYRg5i0ui7gOGUSxEm1zXFKPzdVUgQu-H9TiSVPtsJk6jQ5weI/s640/Shannon+Back.jpg" width="446" /></a></div> I'll let Shannon tell their stories: <blockquote>"I knew I wanted a tattoo, but the commitment to one idea was freaking me out.  However, I took an Art of Mexico class and when I learned the term 'Nepantla' I knew that was it. Nepantla is a term in Nahuatl that roughly means 'on the border' or 'in between.' It seemed perfect. I got the tattoo done at a place off Pacific Coast Highway in Sunset Beach, California. It was a birthday gift from an ex that I was still friends with. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI2iR3dO1x0x6A4YuEAf0gAXCMyBOD9Ga9enHMwItdQu_aE6sNya2OkYaGHwdF79Np7XMvyfeq31Hmz9vMnD-wfcNe-GUGhr9ItlMkMdwhRJYHEDv968iE63tQXyO7fE-sscRnupBnciw/s1600/shannon+ring.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI2iR3dO1x0x6A4YuEAf0gAXCMyBOD9Ga9enHMwItdQu_aE6sNya2OkYaGHwdF79Np7XMvyfeq31Hmz9vMnD-wfcNe-GUGhr9ItlMkMdwhRJYHEDv968iE63tQXyO7fE-sscRnupBnciw/s400/shannon+ring.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> The next tattoo I got was of a coyote ouroboros. I love the coyote as a trickster symbol in Native American myth and I was also very drawn to the symbolism behind the ouroboros, the life-death-life cycle. I did not relate to the more classic ouroboros images of a dragon or a snake so I asked a young artist named Natalie Robles to design the coyote ouroboros for me. The tattoo was done at <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/atomic-tattoo-and-body-piercing-hollywood">Atomic Tattoo</a> off Hollywood Boulevard [in Los Angeles]. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj88heZadLG67dH9N8vOquQfadKvTfR7hhhlQC3u4z70EGeRDWlwrsrE_OcUgh2L280yvUFeJycyCbBzsg4kCL_OdXv17HXDVEoH_vqef8L0rIMJiA6orT-i-1J3qjk68rfgsAkGIhbP8c/s1600/shannon+cat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj88heZadLG67dH9N8vOquQfadKvTfR7hhhlQC3u4z70EGeRDWlwrsrE_OcUgh2L280yvUFeJycyCbBzsg4kCL_OdXv17HXDVEoH_vqef8L0rIMJiA6orT-i-1J3qjk68rfgsAkGIhbP8c/s400/shannon+cat.jpg" width="300" /></a></div> On the drive to a wedding in Arizona, my friend and I decided to get almost-matching tattoos. It seemed that since we were both people who had tattoos that we should have at least one on a whim. It had to be something simple since we didn't have a chance to research the tattoo shop. We settled on cat silhouettes. The next tattoo I had done [seen at the bottom of the back in the top photo above] was at a shop in Lake Forest, California.  While walking to class one day at Cal State Long Beach, a flyer grabbed my attention – it depicted an awareness ribbon designed to resemble an Asian character. I saw it and I simply knew. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvNOcEPj9D9bgOvHyMJNlRdWtcFK5Vq87_DkNhPNJGStj7x7TT3h6_4flrIdSWrHQFdM8XNLqtsICMpqhym-jRtLA8FV_7i64hEoriHC7BILM9oS0KP7cth1U40uQl5fuA8wNwc6ZhMt0/s1600/qpq.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvNOcEPj9D9bgOvHyMJNlRdWtcFK5Vq87_DkNhPNJGStj7x7TT3h6_4flrIdSWrHQFdM8XNLqtsICMpqhym-jRtLA8FV_7i64hEoriHC7BILM9oS0KP7cth1U40uQl5fuA8wNwc6ZhMt0/s640/qpq.jpg" width="507" /></a></div> My quid pro quo\ tattoo was done at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wicked-Ink-Tattoos-Body-Piercing/128795187164269?v=info">Wicked Ink</a> in Knoxville, Tennessee.  I had heard the phrase literally translated to 'what for whom' and I had known for some time I wanted a tattoo that embodied my fascination with the structure of power. Again, I wanted something simple because I hadn't researched the tattoo shop – I was on another trip. I chose a female tattoo artist because it occurred to me that all my previous tattoos had been done by men."</blockquote>Shannon sent us three poems to consider and I selected this one: To My Stretchmarks Fossilized jelly fish tendrils. Moon-colored veins, chalk-scrawled tree roots, icicle milk. On my hips, Nature tattoos lightning. --originally published in <a href="http://www.csulb.edu/web/journals/riprap/">RipRap</a> #30, 2008 <div style="text-align: center;">~ ~ ~</div> Shannon Phillips earned an MFA in creative writing from <a href="http://www.csulb.edu/">Cal State University Long Beach</a>. Her work has been published in <a href="http://www.pearlmag.com/">Pearl</a>, <a href="http://verdadmagazine.org/vol3/poetry/phillips.html">Verdad</a>, <a href="http://www.csulb.edu/web/journals/riprap/">RipRap</a>, Rectangle, and her poem “Plum” placed second in <a href="http://www.beyondbaroque.org/">Beyond Baroque's</a> First Ever Poetry Contest. She previously taught ESL for two years and now edits <a href="http://www.carnivalitmag.com/">Carnival</a>, an online literary magazine. Thanks to Shannon for sharing her poem and all of her tattoos with us on Tattoosday. I'd also like to thank her for referring us to Eric Morago, who appeared on the Tattooed Poets Project here, earlier this month. This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoos are reprinted with the poet's permission. 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

The Tattooed Poets Project: Shannon Phillips

Today's tattooed poet is Shannon Phillips. She has five tattoos, none of which are in color. All of them are on her back. She sent us a ...

2:59 AM

The Tattooed Poets Project: Chris Siteman

Today's chapter of the Tattooed Poet's Project features the work of Chris Siteman. Chris sent in this poem featuring these literature-based tattoos : <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj28LQbnj4GZ6oJGEylHutKy0JTV0E-TOTo8pvhR2QSfKPpER3jZctebVns6znvH9R_PNZ-YDEg6Y6pGNRzMubFbKC0l7BFvzhC5C5bGiNd6BPedVCi6N82rVXp-HSZ58eHFW1Vr7mDNbg/s1600/Labor+and+Patience.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj28LQbnj4GZ6oJGEylHutKy0JTV0E-TOTo8pvhR2QSfKPpER3jZctebVns6znvH9R_PNZ-YDEg6Y6pGNRzMubFbKC0l7BFvzhC5C5bGiNd6BPedVCi6N82rVXp-HSZ58eHFW1Vr7mDNbg/s400/Labor+and+Patience.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> Chris explains: <blockquote class="tr_bq">"The pieces on my chest were my first two tattoos. I got them when I was twenty, and was working as a doorman at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rathskeller">The Rathskeller</a>, Boston’s now defunct rock bar better known as The Rat. The pieces were originally inked by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/goldenlotustattoo">Jason Sexton</a> (Patience) and another tattoo artist (LABOR) whose name I do not recall, but who was then best known around the scene for the fact that he taught himself to tattoo by inking his own arm in a rendering of robotics from shoulder to fingertips. The work on the tattoos was performed before the legalization of tattooing in Massachusetts, and so the work on the word 'LABOR' was performed across the street from <a href="http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/bos/ballpark/index.jsp">Fenway Park</a> in an acquaintance’s apartment, and the work on the word 'Patience' was performed in the apartment I then rented with another doorman and a bartender who both also worked at The Rat.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">The tattoo was inspired by something my older brother, <a href="http://www.williamokeefe.com/">William O’Keefe</a> (the painter better known as W.O’K.), said to me often throughout my upbringing. He would repeat the phrase, 'learn to labor and to wait' at various moments during my childhood when I experienced some kind of setback or difficulty. As I entered my early teens it came to my knowledge that the line was from the last stanza of a poem, titled '<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173910">A Psalm of Life, or What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist</a>,' by <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/143">Henry Wadsworth Longfellow</a>. As I came to find out, our cousin (<a href="http://www.pw.org/content/richard_chetwynd">Richard Chetwynd</a>, also a professor and a writer of poems) shared the poem with my brother years before. Some time in the year or so before the choice to get the words inked on my chest, a period of my life that seemed to be particularly lacking in answers of any kind, I came to the realization my brother had been whispering the 'answer' in my ear since I was very young."</blockquote>The last stanza of Longfellow's poem proclaims: Let us, then, be up and doing,      With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing,      Learn to labor and to wait.           ~H.W. Longfellow (1838) Chris offers us the following poem, "The Father of All Lies," which was originally published in <a href="http://www.consequencemagazine.org/">Consequence Magazine</a> Vol. II, and then subsequently published in <a href="http://www.ditchpoetry.com/">Ditch Poetry</a> in September of 2011: The Father of All Lies 1. the murder My father ghosts onto the trail, moon-lit sand—                                                                          Darkness the distance he hears them yell, but he glides, burns in moon fire, & her old woman eyes open wide, shrink at the same time; her tracheal cartilage fractures the air. After he drinks so he cannot feel her last breath against his cheek, his grip on her boney neck, can’t hear her gurgle. Taut as strings on a lyre, he sees our mother’s silhouette in green alarmclock light. Arm’s distance, she gasps— She walks where the moon woman died. He’s a young man, her throat under his hand. 2. complicity I remember a black trunk at the foot of my parents’ bed, five stacks of letters tied with red string, black & white photographs scattered in the removable drawer where a short sword, flat across the toes of his boots, shone. How the glint of steel caught my eye— Running a finger along the edge, I sensed that blade deep in my marrow. I heard steps on the stairs, but burned with the image of a young man standing like a cross, smiling, head dangling from each hair-clenched fist— Their two faces looked asleep forever. 3. childhood A seven-year-old I saw a hero in my father, though I didn’t know his name, & my father bound his life to lies, a story-line, ideas how that hero’s name should sound— Home, a mother who didn’t send him to a workfarm at eight, a life where he escaped sentencing, where he never hung on the corner of Somerville Ave. in Winter Hill, never— He attended Saint Mary’s for boys run by Jesuits & nuns who measured Christ’s love with yardstick & ruler edges, & Father Mike’s marred knuckles dealt penance enough. 4. his whole life At dances, my father kissed girls in plaid skirts until the Holy Ghost gave way to canned beer fistfights with public school boys from Cambridge. His father lay dying as they held hands in a disinfected hospital room. He played guard for his high school’s basketball team, before that book binder’s job to support his mother, before friends died for God & Country, rather than having skulls caved in with a sixty-five pound barbell in the yard mid-day over smokes, a fuck, skin color, a look— 5. elegy for a fallen comrade He died there, same as we all did. His dying just showed more, killed him faster. Sure as I speak now, saying this: in a field of fear & steel, fists clenched in mud, writhing through stench, through mortar-churned graves, more bullets than bees in spring, poppies everywhere, larks sang for sunset— His body lies under grass, while brambles of razor-wire, forgotten toe poppers & I persist, unholy love poems to those who died for reasons of which they spoke no knowledge. 6. inertia A cold lung of air strikes me how close one never gets to a man whose shadow stands that tall; there’s a black & white photograph from which my father grimaces. When I was a child at the kitchen table we laughed together over funnies, his steel bones softened & he turned his face away from his stone face— Sometimes I see his crook-tooth smile, still hear him laugh,                                                                                                but then a memory— Him breaking a boy’s knee with a bat in front of our house; the boy crawls, blubbers; father whispers before each blow: Time to pay the piper, kid. Time to pay. 7. the long stare My father told lies to soften his stare, to frighten me less & help me remember— A black trunk of war memorabilia & other lies I wanted to be true. He never told the shape of his loneliness: Hatcheting heads from geese under January’s granite skies, hanging their little corpses on hooks to bleed out, tenderness named the ache in the old farmer’s bones on the bitterest of days, and the streets of Winter Hill before he killed. <div style="text-align: center;">~ ~ ~</div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div>Born in Boston, Chris Siteman grew up in a blue collar, predominantly Irish-Catholic, family. He’s traveled widely in the US and Europe, and worked extensively in the trades. In 2007 Chris received his MFA from <a href="http://www.emerson.edu/">Emerson College</a>. Since August of 2010 he’s been pursuing his JD at <a href="http://www.law.suffolk.edu/">Suffolk Law</a>. He has taught in <a href="http://www.bu.edu/">Boston University’s</a> undergraduate writing program, <a href="http://www.lesley.edu/">Lesley University’s</a> Humanities Department, and currently teaches in <a href="http://www.suffolk.edu/">Suffolk University’s</a> English Department. While the poem here was originally published in Consequence Magazine Vol. II, and subsequently in Ditch Poetry in September of 2011, his work has otherwise most recently appeared in <a href="http://www.anomalouspress.org/5/15.siteman.bindery.php">Anomalous</a>, <a href="http://thefiddleback.com/issue-items/10-000-days">The Fiddleback</a>, <a href="http://borderlinepoetry.info/post/16953218862/vol-2-issue-5-chris-siteman">Borderline</a> and <a href="http://poetryquarterly.com/?p=418">Poetry Quarterly</a>. Thanks to Chris for his contribution to the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday! This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission. 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Chris Siteman

Today's chapter of the Tattooed Poet's Project features the work of Chris Siteman. Chris sent in this poem featuring these literatur...

11:56 PM

The Tattooed Poets Project: Emily Harrison

Today we have another tattooed poet from "across the Pond". Emily Harrison sent us this lovely tattoo from the United Kingdom: <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5S1B6ilKfRCijr4Ym8m5cZF4pqMjIqx-TyLYlkEXpSDbUdN7rq100yK5dspQtNaE12200Ud0d14y8OFhXEQJxskN0yjLtzYhJyIsgYfNTT5kFCnqafJ39terGAJfnwEd5FWqbdT8u8e4/s1600/crow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5S1B6ilKfRCijr4Ym8m5cZF4pqMjIqx-TyLYlkEXpSDbUdN7rq100yK5dspQtNaE12200Ud0d14y8OFhXEQJxskN0yjLtzYhJyIsgYfNTT5kFCnqafJ39terGAJfnwEd5FWqbdT8u8e4/s400/crow.jpg" width="300" /></a></div> Emily explains: <blockquote class="tr_bq">"It was the first appointment of the day on my 18th birthday at <a href="http://www.sinkingtheink.co.uk/">Sinking The Ink</a> in Swindon and I finally got to get the tattoo. I ignored friends and family warning me not to commit to such a lifelong commitment at such a 'young and impressionable age' and, being quite the goody-two-shoes for most of my life, went for it. My inspiration is <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/113">Ted Hughes'</a> collection of work, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0571099157/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=bill03-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0571099157">Crow</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=bill03-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0571099157" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> (sometimes I can bend the truth slightly and give a nod if anyone asks <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/130">Edgar Allen Poe</a>) and I now have a perching taxidermy crow to match it."</blockquote>By way of poetry, Emily has offered up this item for our enjoyment: Instantly Your Biggest Fan I want to hear you describe my look as blood in the sugar bowl my attitude as the paddling pool blown onto the M4 causing a pile up you don’t love me you should when we go to the seaside I wont even moan when I drop my ice cream and when you offer me yours I wont accept I’ll make your tongue ache until its like you’ve been sucking on fudge you’ll have dreams where you save me from wreckages burning freak accidents the one you love and the one who loves you are never ever the same person now fall in love with me as if I were a French girl on a postcard <div style="text-align: center;">~ ~ ~</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I generally don't comment on the poems, but I like this one very much and am thankful Emily sent it our way.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> Emily Harrison won the <a href="http://www.towerpoetry.org.uk/">Christopher Tower Poetry Prize</a> in 2010 and is set to be published in the April edition of <a href="http://popshotpopshot.com/">Popshot Magazine</a>. Her poetry is scarlet, penetrating, funny and honest. Emily does beautiful, stark and memorable words. She has red hair, perpetual lipstick and high heels. She adds, "I find inspiration from the men in my life; some painfully thin, most aggressively passionate, all with strange hair cuts." Thanks to Emily for her contribution to the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!</div><div style="text-align: left;">This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission. 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<a href="http://tattoosday.blogspot.com/"> http://tattoosday.blogspot.com</a> 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. </div>

The Tattooed Poets Project: Emily Harrison

Today we have another tattooed poet from "across the Pond". Emily Harrison sent us this lovely tattoo from the United Kingdom: Emi...

12:09 AM

The Tattooed Poets Project: Sammi Skolmoski

Whenever possible, I try and correspond our posts with corresponding dates. So, when <a href="http://madnessbarely.tumblr.com/">Sammi Skolmoski</a> sent this tattoo in, April 11 seemed appropriate: <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdTmFAQWc8afwSnS2LJApiaH4o-i6UNPc8WXE11kjNmtp0r9aP0fd8Om-3u6ler2Bo2XS-D0lpDuPY8unVi3EFAgICVsIeswOZlWRNaS6mwo8ZnebUiV9prsDk3zFy1puyTmpdmRCD3ig/s1600/blue+monday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdTmFAQWc8afwSnS2LJApiaH4o-i6UNPc8WXE11kjNmtp0r9aP0fd8Om-3u6ler2Bo2XS-D0lpDuPY8unVi3EFAgICVsIeswOZlWRNaS6mwo8ZnebUiV9prsDk3zFy1puyTmpdmRCD3ig/s640/blue+monday.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> Why this tattoo today? April 11, 2012 marks five years since the great <a href="http://www.vonnegut.com/">Kurt Vonnegut</a> passed away and, as Sammi explains: <blockquote class="tr_bq">" 'Goodbye, Blue Monday' is the alternate title of Vonnegut’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_of_Champions">Breakfast of Champions</a>. It is my favorite book - one in which Vonnegut’s masterful use of satire and science result in a climax where he, as author, enters the pages as master/manipulator supreme, to indefinitely release his indentured characters from narrative confinement. The 'meta' relationship between writer and character — that they answer to, and are, the same person — changed my attitude toward writing, and rid me of the dreadful seriousness I often assigned it. And, I just adore sunflowers. The floral manifestation of a ruling cosmic entity! The perfect warrior to bid goodbye to any blue Monday’s to come."</blockquote> Sammi credits this piece to <a href="http://mariodesa.com/home.html">Mario Desa</a> at the <a href="http://chicagotattoo.com/home.html">Chicago Tattooing & Piercing Company</a>. Not only do we get this tattoo from Sammi, but she has also provided us with one of her poems: ALCHEMIST’S LAMENT He is monochromatose transmuted by kaleidoscope inherent in his daily dose of bioluminescent dope. A regulated water bath that leavens into churning gas facilitates the stoneward path of drowning yellow jars of glass the philosophic red and white beheld as sacred, even nigh, rears ancient alchemistic plight of whole salve dangling near his thigh. ~~~ Sammi Skolmoski is a writer and multimedia artist living in Los Angeles who curates a quarterly lit zine called “<a href="http://madnessbarely.tumblr.com/">Madness, Barely</a>” and is a frequent contributor to <a href="http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/">San Diego Citybeat</a>. She surrounds herself with mystics, gazes at the sky, and plays her records LOUDLY. Thanks to Sammi for her contribution to The Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday! This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission. 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Sammi Skolmoski

Whenever possible, I try and correspond our posts with corresponding dates. So, when Sammi Skolmoski sent this tattoo in, April 11 seemed a...

12:00 AM

The Tattooed Poets Project: Traci Brimhall

Today's tattooed poet is <a href="http://www.tracibrimhall.com/">Traci Brimhall</a>, who shares this single word with us: <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihod-Cm15H9frpLV6F4AN5szSmaalbUzPdo4ByfX0rVPjYKKmkxtxAwhhwX8Y2WpASzw4ahriMf7nhSpnXuvOBeI3ymAvAVa4nmb-HwP19hAshINrC2NdM5nZzc4IHLnwmgQg29T0gkYE/s1600/Brimhall-tattoo-duende.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihod-Cm15H9frpLV6F4AN5szSmaalbUzPdo4ByfX0rVPjYKKmkxtxAwhhwX8Y2WpASzw4ahriMf7nhSpnXuvOBeI3ymAvAVa4nmb-HwP19hAshINrC2NdM5nZzc4IHLnwmgQg29T0gkYE/s400/Brimhall-tattoo-duende.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> Traci explains: <blockquote class="tr_bq">"I got my tattoo last April during the <a href="http://news.siu.edu/news/March11/032311amh11064.html">Little Grassy Literary Festival</a> at Carbondale, IL. I was in Carbondale to do a reading from my first book, when I got the email that my second book had been accepted. I wanted to do something to mark the occasion, something both wild and permanent, and there was a poet and tattoo artist, <a href="http://ruthawad.com/">Ruth Awad</a>, at the dinner table who offered to give me my first ink. I spent that night celebrating in Ruth's kitchen getting my first tattoo.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">I chose the word Duende, a word the Spanish poet <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/163">Frederico Garcia Lorca</a> said represented "a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought." A guitar maestro had once explained it to him this way: 'The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet.' When people ask me to explain it, I usually say it's an art that asks you to do battle with what is darkest in you, and what comes out is already baptized by black sounds."</blockquote>Here is the poem Traci selected for us to read: Aubade with a Broken Neck The first night you don’t come home summer rains shake the clematis. I bury the dead moth I found in our bed, scratch up a rutabaga and eat it rough with dirt. The dog finds me and presents between his gentle teeth a twitching nightjar. In her panic, she sings in his mouth. He gives me her pain like a gift, and I take it. I hear the cries of her young, greedy with need, expecting her return, but I don’t let her go until I get into the house. I read the auspices—the way she flutters against the wallpaper’s moldy roses means all can be lost. How she skims the ceiling means a storm approaches. You should see her in the beginnings of her fear, rushing at the starless window, her body a dart, her body the arrow of longing, aimed, as all desperate things are, to crash not into the object of desire, but into the darkness behind it. <div style="text-align: center;">~ ~</div> Traci Brimhall is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393086437/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=bill03-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0393086437">Our Lady of the Ruins: Poems</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=bill03-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0393086437" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> (W.W. Norton), selected by <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/214">Carolyn Forché</a> for the 2011 <a href="http://barnard.edu/headlines/traci-brimhall-awarded-barnard-women-poets-prize">Barnard Women Poets Prize</a>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809329972/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=bill03-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0809329972">Rookery (Crab Orchard Series in Poetry)</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=bill03-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0809329972" style="border-style: none ! important; margin: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> (Southern Illinois University Press), winner of the 2009 <a href="http://craborchardreview.siuc.edu/firstpo.html">Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award</a>. Her poems have appeared in <a href="http://www.kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2010-winter/selections/the-sunken-gospel/">Kenyon Review</a>, <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/poem/2010/08/through_a_glass_darkly.html">Slate</a>, <a href="http://www.vqronline.org/author/5891/traci-brimhall/">Virginia Quarterly Review</a>, <a href="http://www.nereview.com/back-issues/vol-32-no-2-2011/traci-brimhall-somniloquy/">New England Review</a>, <a href="http://www.missourireview.com/content/dynamic/author_detail.php?author_id=1352">The Missouri Review</a>, and elsewhere. She was the 2008-09 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the <a href="http://creativewriting.wisc.edu/fellowships.html">Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing</a> and currently teaches at <a href="http://www.wmich.edu/">Western Michigan University</a>, where she is a doctoral associate and <a href="http://www.umflint.edu/graduateprograms/kcp.htm">King/Chávez/Parks Fellow</a>. Thanks to Traci Brimhall for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday! <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=0393086437" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe></div> <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=0809329972" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe></div> This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission. 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Traci Brimhall

Today's tattooed poet is Traci Brimhall , who shares this single word with us: Traci explains: "I got my tattoo last April during t...

11:57 PM

The Tattooed Poets Project: Gary McDowell

Our next tattooed poet is <a href="http://www.garylmcdowell.com/">Gary McDowell</a>. Here's what Gary had to say about his ink: <blockquote class="tr_bq">"I remember thinking as a teenager that I’d never get a tattoo. It wasn’t because I didn’t like them. I did. It wasn’t because I was afraid of the pain. I wasn’t. I think it had something to do with the fact that I had no idea what I would ever want permanently etched into my skin. But as I grew older and my obsessions and faiths and vocations started to align, I reconsidered, and now I don’t ever want to stop.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Both of my tattoos come from an artist, Blaine, at <a href="http://www.babybluestattoo.com/">Baby Blues Tattoos</a> in Bradenton, FL. My wife’s family has a condo on Anna Maria Island, FL, and so we visit every summer. In the summer of 2006 I got my first tattoo (the kanji for “poet/poetry” on my right wrist).</blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5am2Aaw3Zh2BkrTV1VpQp5D_US21Qw4Q1XG4DQAFLRfCbY1k8BIoAfx2xD3YwEa9pI-DOXZSqh8m9ZH6SAZigVtJRBasHvATK0oLH2p_oBLrpTn2RKGV5TPMAOMP7nhiLE-Kt954MDrk/s1600/McDowell_wrist_tattoo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5am2Aaw3Zh2BkrTV1VpQp5D_US21Qw4Q1XG4DQAFLRfCbY1k8BIoAfx2xD3YwEa9pI-DOXZSqh8m9ZH6SAZigVtJRBasHvATK0oLH2p_oBLrpTn2RKGV5TPMAOMP7nhiLE-Kt954MDrk/s400/McDowell_wrist_tattoo.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><blockquote class="tr_bq">The impetus for it was simple: I’m right-handed and a poet, and so the thought of having poetry on my wrist appealed greatly to me.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Blaine did such a good job that in the summer of 2008, I went back and got my left calf worked on.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaA-AvRkZI1PGv6LsxVTIUNLhyTmKPBxJNyiEPifqalWvvlPL6sJ6lDok9dhMcJxtzI8i5e1BBFJhCshJZW4w_0mDO5vWTXNOdEOq1DM1cCqQ1J9YpcnmrCnhXL9VxHOxHny9jEeSZYt4/s1600/McDowell_calf_tattoo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaA-AvRkZI1PGv6LsxVTIUNLhyTmKPBxJNyiEPifqalWvvlPL6sJ6lDok9dhMcJxtzI8i5e1BBFJhCshJZW4w_0mDO5vWTXNOdEOq1DM1cCqQ1J9YpcnmrCnhXL9VxHOxHny9jEeSZYt4/s400/McDowell_calf_tattoo.JPG" width="313" /></a></div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">At the time, my wife was pregnant with our first son, and we planned to name him Auden; though his name was not totally derived from the poet <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Auden">W.H. Auden</a>—my wife found the name in a baby book and dug it before she even knew it was a famous poet’s surname—I wanted to do something to commemorate my Auden’s impending arrival, and so I decided on two of my favorite lines from Auden’s 'The Question': 'And ghosts must do again / What gives them pain.' It’s a gorgeous reminder that we must conquer our fears, take a stance against what haunts us."</blockquote>Gary sent us the following poem which, in his words, "exemplifies my work best": THIS SUMMER WITH FISCHL                                                        Waukegan, IL, June-July 2009 I must repent for this summer I’ve spent beyond creatures, for the mysteries I’ve seen in a world that thinks there are none, a world where we’ve named things— garage, fence, robin, poem—so that we can feel something when we destroy them. I must repent for the chlorophyll in the leaves, the time I’ve spent in the pool, no raft, just my convexed back keeping me afloat, for the hours wasted hoping the clouds above me would form into something recognizable, something real and weighted, so that I could be touched by something other than a man begging for change outside the library. I must repent for the sunflower, its aching, arcing reach for light, for staring at the woman next-door, her meticulous morning routine: compact the trash in the can with a snow shovel, add a full bag from the kitchen, return the lid to the can, and weight it with a ham-tin filled with pennies. I too wouldn’t have believed it. Every time I turn my head to look out the window, I see a harsh light through the blinds, striping everyone with shadows, I see Bad Boy: a teenaged boy, a purse full of money, a nude woman (his mother?) on her bed, her leg bent, arched toward her mouth—is she hungry, dreaming, bored? John Yau says it’s the tiger stripes of light and dark splayed across the woman that make her an animal, but I’m glad she’s uncaged. What it must feel like to be stitched together, thefted-after like a bowl of apples and bananas in a Freudian dream? In another painting, a woman crawls naked through a backyard, huddles against a row of hedges. While I haven’t seen that, I must repent for the squirrel that fell from the tree, for my dog who wouldn’t let go of its neck. The hours I spent looking at beach scenes: I repent. The incest, the drinking, the affairs, the nudity: I repent. The thinking beyond line, beyond shape: I repent. I repent: the patio tomato plants, watercolors, prints, maquettes of the neighbor’s new garage, king crab legs for dinner, a nude sunbather on her belly, her back damp, her boombox sweating Shakira, Marc Anthony, and then silence. The eavesdropping, the baseball on the radio, sweet peas and carrots. For the old man across the street, his bad hips, his garbage can that I move to the curb, his cane, too short for his arms: I repent. In many of the paintings, I imagine a dialogue between two quarreling lovers—or is it a monologue, a palette of yellows and reds through the kitchen window each morning, their cups of coffee barely settled on the counter before they begin. I must repent for the unneighborly innuendos, the pile of dog shit on the driveway that someone will surely step in, unaware that they have until later, much later. I must repent for repenting, for repeating myself, but this summer of recycling bins and large paper bags full of lawn clippings has named me differently, and Fischl, his naked eyes, have given me a hard-on for all things domestic: gossiping, love-making, dog-walking, putting myself ahead of myself only to find myself lost in myself, lost because nothing is what it seems here. I must repent for spending so much time with the mysteries of texture, with a book that weighs more than my son, with my neighbors as if my neighbors were paintings, as if their lives were canvassed, colored, hung on my eyelids. The streets, the beaches, the neighbors: all starkly lit scenes, a robust sense of everything having been played and replayed, rehearsed like Sleepwalker, that skinny boy in the porch light, cock in hand. The lawn chairs empty, and we watch him like we want to help him, like we can touch him ourselves and make him stop, but he won’t stop, not until the lights go out or the sun rises or we fall asleep watching. I must repent for not watching more closely the bagpipe-lined streets, for the way the doves peck at the window when they’re angry or confused or cold or hungry. Perhaps I haven’t been completely beyond creatures. Perhaps my creatures, destroyed, I thought, before I started here, are merely lost in the lines, the colors, the textures of a painting I have yet to encounter. --originally appeared in Indiana Review, Vol 32, No 1 <div style="text-align: center;">~ ~ ~</div> Gary L. McDowell's first full-length collection of poems, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1935716042/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=bill03-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1935716042">American Amen</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=bill03-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1935716042" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> (<a href="http://home.comcast.net/~jpdancingbear/dhp.html">Dream Horse Press</a>, 2010), won the 2009 Orphic Prize for Poetry. He's also the author of two chapbooks, <a href="http://store.cooperdillon.com/product/they-speak-of-fruit">They Speak of Fruit</a> (Cooper Dillon, 2009) and The Blueprint (Pudding House, 2005), and he's the co-editor of <a href="http://www.rosemetalpress.com/Catalog/prose_poetry.html">The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice </a>(Rose Metal Press, 2010). His poems have appeared in dozens of literary journals, including <a href="http://www.bhreview.org/2011/03/01/spring-2011/">The Bellingham Review</a>, <a href="http://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/colorado-review/">Colorado Review</a>, The <a href="http://indianareview.org/">Indiana Review</a>, <a href="http://catpages.nwmissouri.edu/m/tlr/">The Laurel Review</a>, <a href="http://www.nereview.com/">New England Review</a>, <a href="http://www.ninthletter.com/">Ninth Letter</a>, and <a href="http://www.quarterlywest.utah.edu/">Quarterly West</a>. He lives in Nashville, TN where he is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at <a href="http://www.belmont.edu/">Belmont University</a>. Thanks to Gary for his contribution to this year's Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday! <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=1935716042" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe></div> This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission. 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Gary McDowell

Our next tattooed poet is Gary McDowell . Here's what Gary had to say about his ink: "I remember thinking as a teenager that I’d ne...

12:00 AM

The Tattooed Poets Project: Kayla Sargeson

Often people winder where I find all of our tattooed poets. Many come to us via word-of-mouth and through social media. This year, I found an anthology of poets "under 25," and figured that would be a good resource. Today's post, along with a few others, originated from that volume. Today's tattooed poet is Kayla Sargeson. She is sharing this whimsical tattoo, which is her ninth: <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKyxT3mzszzIN9Lcm8QOhI0W7fhwx12EcL75zBoePf78Fup_v9nSi_Az68JwZIlsXYIZtv6Jjqz9_WsBBjiy_b6TKAv0zMMb1X7WlhrE9ewLIuYhGMxI0MLnB76VtnJcufIWEIm2roPCw/s1600/alien+chicken.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKyxT3mzszzIN9Lcm8QOhI0W7fhwx12EcL75zBoePf78Fup_v9nSi_Az68JwZIlsXYIZtv6Jjqz9_WsBBjiy_b6TKAv0zMMb1X7WlhrE9ewLIuYhGMxI0MLnB76VtnJcufIWEIm2roPCw/s400/alien+chicken.jpg" width="268" /></a></div> This is Kayla's tattoo of an alien head that proclaims “I like chicken.” The artist is <a href="http://classytattooing.com/home.html">Pete Larkin</a> at <a href="http://www.kyklops.com/">Kyklops Tattoo</a> in Pittsburgh, PA. I'll let Kayla explain the rest: <blockquote>For the past year-and-a-half, I’ve been pursuing my MFA in Chicago, a city I’ve grown to hate. I feel like I don’t fit this city, or maybe it just doesn’t fit me. Regardless, I feel like an alien here that had to leave her home planet. Thus the alien tattoo. I go back and forth between Chicago and Pittsburgh often and during one of these visits, my mentor <a href="http://janbeatty.com/">Jan Beatty</a> was dropping me off at Kyklops [Tattoo]. She said “why don’t you have your alien say ‘I like chicken.’” I thought this was the funniest thing in the world, so I said “okay.” I walked into the shop where Pete was working on the alien. He showed me the sketch and I said “It looks perfect, except can the alien say ‘I like chicken’?” “Absolutely” said Pete and we were both standing in his little work station, cracking up. Because I have so many tattoos, I quit going for ones that have some soft, sentimental back story. I love to laugh and I like to be amused. I wake up to my alien every day and every day he makes me laugh. </blockquote>Kayla sends us this poem: Hellwave Eleven tattoos and can’t stop want my body covered/ no space for that night at the fraternity house: body cracked open like glass. I want a needle in my skin. I’m the queen wasp thick and pissed off. My friends say girl you’re on the fringe/ father likes to get me drunk/show off: This is my smart daughter. The pretty one’s at home. I know the push of a hand on the back of the head/ faceful of cock/baby no teeth do what I tell you/stepfather’s raised fist: bitch I’ll hit you. At the Rock Room, for a tit grab it’s all-you-can-drink-all-night. I’ll suck you off for a joint. I’m looking for my studded Sid Vicious cliché: skinny punk with the bass guitar. He’s got the chain wallet, leans against his amp and almost looks alive. He rides a Fat Boy/he’ll get me out of here. We’ll ride the hellwave screaming. <div style="text-align: center;">~ ~ ~</div> Kayla Sargeson earned a BA in creative writing from <a href="http://www.carlow.edu/">Carlow University</a> in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she was awarded the Award for Excellence in Creative Writing: Poetry. Her work has appeared in the national anthology, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061896373/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=bill03-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0061896373">Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets under 25</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=bill03-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0061896373" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />, selected by <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/174">Naomi Shihab Nye</a>, as well as Voices from the Attic Volume XIV, and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6989836-dionne-s-story">Dionne’s Story</a>. Her poems also appear, or are forthcoming in, <a href="http://www.5ampoetry.com/">5 AM</a>, <a href="http://www.colum.edu/columbiapoetryreview/">Columbia Poetry Review</a>, <a href="http://chironreview.com/">Chiron Review</a>, Paper Street, <a href="http://opheliastreet.com/">Ophelia Street</a>, <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/">the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</a>, and <a href="http://www.phantomlimbpress.com/Phantom_Limb/Home.html">phantom limb</a>. She is attending the MFA program at<a href="http://www.colum.edu/"> Columbia College Chicago</a>, where she is recipient of a <a href="http://www.colum.edu/Academics/DMTC/DMTC_Student_Handbook/dmt-c_criteria_for_maintaining_the_follett_fellowship.php">Follet Fellowship</a> and serves as an editor for the <a href="http://www.colum.edu/columbiapoetryreview/">Columbia Poetry Review</a>. Thanks to Kayla for her contribution to the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday! This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission. 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Kayla Sargeson

Often people winder where I find all of our tattooed poets. Many come to us via word-of-mouth and through social media. This year, I found a...

12:23 AM