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Jumat, 15 Mei 2015

All Of Her Tattoos Have Wings - heather hughes is Our Tattooed Poet of the Week

Our next Tattooed Poet of the Week is heather hughes. She is sharing this tattoo:

heather tells us:

"I have four tattoos (at the moment), and of course I chose one that's difficult to photograph to send: a dragon silhouette on my left ribcage. The ink was done at Chameleon in Cambridge, MA, and I went there with 3 other poet friends who were also getting work. The art is based on drawings by Wayne Anderson that are featured in Peter Dickinson's book THE FLIGHT OF DRAGONS.

I developed an obsession with fantasy, and dragons in particular, largely because of an 80s Rankin & Bass animated adaptation (which I still deeply love). When I went into the tattoo shop, I thought I was going to get this design much smaller, and on my left forearm. Instead, I walked out with a dragon next to my heart. I was coming out of a fragile headspace and had only recently recommitted myself to making art. My dragon reminds me that I can be fierce, that I can protect what matters most, that I can continue to believe in what seems impossible. He's found his way into a poem. And I expect that someday I will have another dragon tattoo to keep him company."

heather sent us the following poem:

Specter: Last Words

Hollow out

spine

and binding

— open —

thousandstarred spark

I dream your funeral speech

you stammer at my ghost

leaving these pages to soak on the porch.

~ ~ ~

heather hughes hangs her heart in Boston and Miami. All of her tattoos have wings. Her poems have appeared in Bad Penny Review, Cream City Review, Grain, Hinchas de Poesía, and Prick of theSpindle, among others. She posts NaPoWriMo & letterpress experiments at dragonheartbeat.tumblr.com and can also be visited virtually at birdmaddgirl.com or @birdmaddgirl on twitter.

Thanks to heather for contributing to the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

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.

Jumat, 01 Mei 2015

Repost - Six Years Ago - Ben's Amazing Backpiece

Today I decided to look back to our May 1 post from 2009. It's better to have something old than nothing at all, so enjoy this piece from the last decade:

With the Tattooed Poets Series under way last month, I was a bit remiss in posting about the "regular" tattoo encounters.

With apologies to the following volunteer, I am presenting some amazing work on a gentleman named Ben, who I spotted back on April 2 while walking through Penn Station.

Ben was wearing a short-sleeve shirt and had tattoos covering his arms. When I approached him and explained Tattoosday, he enthusiastically agreed to participate. In fact, he removed his shirt to reveal an incredible back piece:

The one problem with featuring huge tattoos like this is not getting all the details in. What follows are some of the finer points of the tattoo.

At the bottom of the back is an hourglass design, within which is, Ben said, kanji representing the word "redemption":

The piece represents that he has "only so much time to redeem himself".

The main set of Chinese text in the center of the back was loosely translated by Ben as "I have trust in no man except for the trust I save for myself":

Also of note on the back are the two kanji representing "father" (the right side) and "forgive me" (the left side). These characters are in disks on either side at the top of the back.

The back was done by an artist no longer practicing at Skin Deep Tattoo on Long Island.

Imagine busy Penn Station, a guy standing there talking to a bespectacled blogger, camera in hand, beholding a subject covered in ink. Where to even begin?

It's like taking someone to the world's largest buffet and telling them they can only fill one small plate with food.

The back as a whole was impressive, but Ben was willing to share more, and we settled on this view, with a dragon and a geisha:

Ben credits this part of his body's tapestry to an artist named Loco working out of Dharma Tattoo in Miami Springs, Florida.

Thanks to Ben for sharing his amazing tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

If you are seeing this on another website 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.

Rabu, 09 Juli 2014

Vince's Half-Sleeve: One Dragon, Lots of Skulls

I met Vince last month on Broadway in Lower Manhattan last month and I asked him about his half sleeve. He was more than willing to share it:

The sleeve includes an old gnarled tree, a dragon clutching a skull, a rose, smoke additional skulls and a moon and stars.

Vince also has this section on his inner bicep:

The playing card, aflame with a skull-faced suicide king, is bright in the center of the inner arm. You also can see another flower with a skull peeking out.

Vince had the dragon inked twenty years ago at The Tattoo Shoppe in Carlstadt, New Jersey, but all of the surrounding work was done by Charlie at Lola's Tattoos in Bogota, New Jersey.

"There's a lot of skulls in there," he told me, "I just like skulls."

Thanks to Vince for taking the time to stop and share his cool tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Sabtu, 26 April 2014

The Tattooed Poets Project: Larry Jaffe

Our next tattooed poet is Larry Jaffe:

Larry explains:

"I always wanted a dagger tattoo from the time I was a kid. I went to see David Zero and was thumbing through his books and spotted this dragon being slayed by a sword and said that’s it. It was a painstaking thing as I recall, especially putting in the white on the sword. He had to go over it over and over and over and over again. It is time for me to get it touched up a bit as it has faded over the years."

Here is one of Larry's poems:

Dragon Slayer

Sword pierces dragon

righteous

almost indignant

I want life over death

it is not inevitable

Sword pierces

my heart

to show I live forever

It slays

the dragons of childhood

It slays

the backstory

– Wanting so much out of life

Wring it dry

of expectation

Learn how to fly

like the eagle

fish like the osprey

hunt like the hawk

These are my brothers

now that my dragon

has been slain

~ ~ ~

Larry Jaffe is an internationally known and an award winning writer, author and poet and founder of Poets Beyond Borders (a group dedicated to human rights and reform) and iSpeax his personal writing forum. Jaffe has been hosting and curating poetry readings for several years while also co-founding Poetix Poetry Magazine (a guide to Southern California Poetry). Additionally, Jaffe was a featured poet for Daimler/Chrysler’s Spirit in the Words poetry program. Jaffe impacts audiences and readers with a rich emotional range, masterfully crafted, written from the heart and soul with clarity and understanding. Jaffe has read his work in such distinguished locations as the Japanese American Museum, the Hammer Museum, the Museum of Tolerance, the Jewish Museum and the Museum of Literature in Prague and the Dylan Thomas Centre in Wales.

Jaffe uses the aesthetic power of poetry to bring understanding to the world. He was the 2007 recipient of the Saint Hill Art Festival’s Lifetime of Creativity Award, the first time given to a poet. He is the former poet in residence of the Autry Museum of Western Heritage. Jaffe spearheaded, along with Rattapalax Publisher Ram Devineni, the United Nations Dialogue among Civilizations through Poetry project which incorporated hundreds of readings in hundreds of cities globally using the aesthetic power of poetry to bring understanding to the world.

His works include The Anguish of the Blacksmith’s Forge, Unprotected Poetry, and One Child Sold.

On the web you can find him at www.lgjaffe.com, on Facebook (www.Facebook.com/LarryJaffe) and Twitter (www.Twitter.com/LarryJaffe).

Thanks to Larry for sharing his tattoo and poetry with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

Rabu, 16 April 2014

The Poet With the Dragon Tattoo: Kristina McDonald on the Tattooed Poets Project

Our next tattooed poet, Kristina McDonald, sent us the image of her back piece:

Kristina elaborates:

"My body and I have a complicated relationship history. This particular tattoo was born at a time when people hadn't been treating my body (or my spirit, I suppose) with care or respect, myself included. And I needed to change that. The mythology of the dragon encompasses many different things: protectors of treasure, symbols of ancient wisdom, powerful fighters. My dragon is a magical mark on my back that reminds me that I am fierce and wise and that my body is a thing that's worth protecting."

Kristina knew her artist's name was Peña, but doesn't recall the name of the shop. She added "rumor is that he went to jail shortly after I got this tattoo and none of my friends seem to know what happened to him."

The following poem she sent us was originally published in Switchback.

Remains

I.
In the picture, her feet are cut off and even now
I imagine her falling.

II.
Everything happens for a reason, says the wolf
with a dove in his claw. If it were up to me,
we would leave all our children in the woods with a blindfold
so they can learn how to really hunt.

III.
Hunger, too, has its benefits. Just look how skinny you are.
And when the men come to raid this village, keep in mind
that empty cupboards are a good place to hide.

IV.
If a broken bottle can still hold water,
it isn’t broken yet.

V.
These days I’m light enough to balance in a pail,
lower myself to the bottom of the wishing well.

VI.
Every night is a dream. Every morning
starts with the same vision: a sure-footed woman
dancing in the fountain, dropping apples
everyone will eat.

~ ~ ~

Kristina McDonald received her MFA from Eastern Washington University, where she served as poetry editor of Willow Springs. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative, New Guard Review, Sugar House Review, Switchback, and Yemassee. She has worked for literary non-profit organizations Writers in the Schools and Get Lit! Programs, and she currently works at Rice University.

Thanks to Kristine for her contribution to the Tattooed Poets Project here on Tattoosday!

Senin, 10 Juni 2013

Revisiting Dan and Checking Out His New Half-Sleeve by Guido Baldini

One of the things we don't talk about a lot here on Tattoosday are the friendships I have developed over the years with people I meet on the street. I'd say less than 10% of the people I interview become friends with me, but it is great to see their collection grow over the years.

Dan is a prime example - I met him first in 2010, and he shared this piece, done by his cousin Guido Baldini.
A year later, he updated me with the additional work that was done to the tattoo here.

Just recently, Dan reached out to me and we were able to meet up in person for me to take a photo of the dragon half-sleeve that Guido did on him recently:

Here's some nice detail:

and

Dan told me he specifically asked Guido for the dragon to be blue, which is not generally a traditional color for Japanese dragons. The red roses, as well, are generally not associated with dragon tattoos. Yet Dan loves this non-traditional take on the classic Japanese dragon.

Check out more of Guido's amazing work at his new shop in Santa Fe, New Miexico at Lost Cowboy Tattoo here.

Thanks to Dan for sharing his latest work with us here on Tattoosday!

Kamis, 18 April 2013

The Tattooed Poets Project: kathryn l. pringle

Our next tattooed poet is kathryn l. pringle, who sent us this tattoo on her left arm::

kathryn offered up this background of the piece:

"when i was 18 years old, i decided to get a tattoo of a spider on a purple web on my right shoulder. only, it never really looked like a spider on a web. it looked more like a peacock. so, at 26, very sick of people asking me about the wimpy peacock on my shoulder, i went into Monkey Wrench tattoo shop in Santa Rosa, CA and talked to Billy the Pope about my options. he said only two things would do the trick: a panther or a dragon. intrigued more by the dragon option, i asked him to draw up some ideas and o, by the way, can you tattoo these chinese characters for wu wei [from Taoism] on my arm before i go home? and so he did.

two weeks later i go back in, and there's my dragon - carefully drawn out on very thin paper. we started work: it took 9 2-hour sessions. Billy was so excited, he was beside himself. he got to do something more creative than the usual rose or sailor. and i got to cover up that ridiculous peacock."

kathryn sent us this poem:

from civil engineering

what do you know
of my lungs

what of my breathing
my expansiveness
or pulmonary life

in the pockets of yr lungs
the tiniest fragments
penetrating
careful not to puncture

a stick in the ribs

that’s what it feels like

a stick in the ribs

to care about humans

~ ~ ~

kathryn l. pringle lives in Oakland, CA. She is the author of fault tree (winner of Omindawn’s 1st/2nd book prize selected by C.D. Wright), RIGHT NEW BIOLOGY (Heretical Texts/Factory School), The Stills (Duration Press), and Temper and Felicity are Lovers.(TAXT). Poems can be found in Denver Quarterly, Epiphany, Fence, Mrs. Maybe, Phoebe, and fiction can be found in Manor House Quarterly and Horse Less Review. Her work can also be found in the anthologies Conversations at the Wartime Cafe: A Decade of War (WODV Press), I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women (Les Figues), and The Sonnets: Translating and Rewriting Shakespeare (Nightboat Books). In 2013, she was a very grateful recipient of a gift from the Fund for Poetry.

Thanks to kathryn for sharing her poem and tattoo with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2013 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.