Rita Banerjee on the Tattooed Poets Project

Our final Tattooed Poet for National Poetry Month is Rita Banerjee, who sent us the following photo of her tattoo:

Rita explains how she came by this tattoo:

"By my senior year of college, I had been tapped into a secret society. When dusk fell over New Brunswick, we wore our dark robes long, accompanied by tawny-colored hats, as we tagged skulls and messages on the sidewalks across Rutgers College. Our secret society, which had been modeled after Skull and Bones and Quill and Dagger, had existed in our quiet but peculiar corner of New Jersey for over a hundred years. Paul Robeson, Ozzie Nelson, Al Aronowitz, Dick Standish, and Rebecca Quick were all members. We let our black robes and anonymity guide us. We wore our mystique close to the vest. Only a handful of deans and administrators kept the roster of our names. And so, in senior year, we easily flitted between the worlds of academic and cultural excellence and our shadow selves. But in May, during our graduation ceremony, our identities would officially be revealed to our fellow classmates and graduating seniors. So before we left the banks of the Old Raritan, broke our clay pipes, and signed our names inside the bell tower of Old Queens, we decided to take up one last dare. One evening, between finals and graduation, we took a trip to Montclair at night. I was the designated driver, and I was in charge of transporting my fellow skulls to a rather funky tattoo parlor in town. I was only there to hold hands and offer encouragement. Just half of us were willing to take the plunge and get a tattoo after all. But before the night was over, I, too, had been persuaded. While other members of our secret society got skulls emblazoned on their biceps and buttocks, I got the words 'Spectemur Agendo' inscribed on my lower back. The phrase was from Ovid, from The Metamorphoses. In Book VIII of The Metamorphoses, Ajax the fearless, exclaims: 'Denique (quid verbis opus est?) spectemur agendo!' That is, 'Finally (what is the use of words?), let us be judged by our actions!' A beautiful and terrifying sentiment. The perfect challenge for a writer: What is the power of words, dear poet? Let us be judged by our actions."

What a great story! In addition to that, Rita also shared, as is custom, a poem, as well:

Paper Men

xeroxing epiphanies at 5¢ a page, the messiah standing next to me has
been speaking the word of hope and rage for 37 years. with 4000 books
living in his mind, he’s international, a sage who hands me a song of
California. and anaheim—anaheim—been on my mind for seven straight
minutes. why? 7 for luck and anaheim for memories not mine. brushing
the tattoo of a carnivale, he says there isn’t a circus in the world he hasn’t
been to. and he’d like to be called Nesmith if you don’t mind. and when he
says Nesmith, i think of mike and white out. white out morning after
crash—seven days of meditating Tantric verse and I crashed, crashed for
six long hours at the highest level of understanding and do you
understand me, child, when I say, I cannot describe it to you? the
Supreme spoke to me and I had something to say. and this I’ve said for
years. and when his eyes ask, believe me, i do ’cause there isn’t a story i
haven’t believed in. and when i nod yes, he says, I have found in your
eyes a kindred spirit. and i think of the paper man i once met on an island.
in my back-pocket wallet, the name Yoshida’s inked, hand-pressed on
rice-white paper. Yoshida sighed once, look at the color of our
women—hair the color of the sun—there is no space for dark anymore.
just the shade of this paper store and the wait, the wait for a word-maker
to pass by. and so he tells me of Korea, the blasphemy of emperors
disgraced, and the beauty of his wife when she wakes him. we talk and
talk and talk of the greatness of rome, sartre, and curry. and somehow
beneath the talk, i can hear his heart. and tonight after kissing another
man of verse, i walk down white halls with a book of words on my head,
and think. today, i met a poet.

~ ~ ~

"Paper Men" originally appeared in the literary journal Objet d’Art and is featured in Rita's new collection Echo in Four Beats (Finishing Line Press, March 2018).

Rita Banerjee is the editor of CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing (C&R Press, May 2018) and the author of the poetry collection Echo in Four Beats (Finishing Line Press, March 2018), which was a finalist for the Red Hen Press Benjamin Saltman Award, Three Mile Harbor Poetry Prize, and Aquarius Press / Willow Books Literature Award, the novella “A Night with Kali” in Approaching Footsteps (Spider Road Press, 2016), and the poetry chapbook Cracklers at Night (Finishing Line Press, 2010). She received her doctorate in Comparative Literature from Harvard and her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington, and her writing appears in the Academy of American Poets, Poets & Writers, Nat. Brut., The Rumpus, The Scofield, Hyphen Magazine, Electric Literature, Painted Bride Quarterly, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She is the Executive Creative Director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop and an Associate Scholar of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, and teaches on modernism, art-house film, and South Asian literary theory at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany. She is the judge for the 2017 Minerva Rising “Dare to Speak” Poetry Chapbook Contest, and she is currently working on a novel about a Tamil-Jewish American family in crisis during a post-authoritarian regime, a book on South Asian literary modernisms, a documentary film about race and intimacy in the United States and in France, and a collection of essays on race, sex, politics, and everything cool.

Thank you so much to Rita for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday, as we wrap up our tenth installment of the Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2018 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading 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.net 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.

My Maneki-neko (The Tattooed Poets Project)

It is the penultimate day of April, and I have completed submissions for one remaining poet, set for tomorrow. But what about today? Every year, I reach out to dozens and dozens of poets, and I have never struggled as mightily as this year to assemble our lineup. Every year, there are always a handful of rollovers for next year (or the year after), but I generally have spilled over into May. This year, there was a hole at the end of the month, so I've decided to selfishly fill it.

So, dear readers, today's tattooed poet is a returning contributor, William Dickenson Cohen, who first contributed in 2009 here.

This past February, I was at the Philadelphia Tattoo Arts Convention, and I left with this guy on my forearm:

This is a customized version of a Maneki-neko cat. Most folks may recognize the basic image from Asian-owned businesses, who have these cats, with waving paws, in their storefronts. The cat is meant to bring success and good fortune and, growing up in Hawai'i, they were everywhere.

Here's the one we've had in our home since the early 1990's, which survived several California earthquakes, and still diligently stands guard:

So, when I knew I was going to Philly, and learned that artist JJ Ohlinger from Prohibition Ink was working the show, I discussed the possibility of getting work from him when I was there. I told him I had wanted a Maneki-neko, and gave him free reign to come up with a design. He drew up two, changing the piece that features kanji to resemble a Pabst Blue Ribbon can. He said he looked through my Facebook feed and mostly saw posts relating to politics and beer, and he didn't think he could work our president into the cat design.

Post-tattoo with JJ Ohlinger (right) at the Philadelphia Convention

At the Philadelphia convention, the stars aligned and JJ was able to fit me in. The result is a quirky, colorful Maneki-neko which I hope will bring good fortune and future success to me and my family.

Back in 2009, when I snuck my own tattoo and poem into the first year of the Tattooed Poets Project, I diligently worked on a tattoo-related sestina, which I was thinking would be appropriate to re-share. I recently read it in public for the first time, and it was well-received. I decided against re-posting it but, if you're interested, you can find it here.

Instead, I offer up this new poem, hastily composed last Friday when it looked like I was going to need to fill a hole in our line-up:

Tattoo Poem

My epitaph will be tattooed

Into something more permanent

Than flesh.

But we’re kidding ourselves

If we think permanence

Is anything but temporary.

We are all data, with half-

lives,

Some shorter than others.

The red ink on my thigh

Is “falling out,” as they say,

The cells expelling molecules

Glacially.

Why decompose

A poem

When words wriggle like worms

Into the mud?

Blood is swept away

As the tattooer stretches the flesh

More molecules

Disappearing into some other form

Like fading stains on the sidewalk.

I hum along to the needle’s song.

The melody is beautiful

And the machines, buzzing their approval,

Sting and sing again,

Reminding us we are alive

In the moment

Before we disappear forever.

 

~ ~ ~

Please return tomorrow for our final post of the 2018 Tattooed Poets Project, and thank you for allowing me to share my newest tattoo and poem here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2018 Tattoosday.

If you are reading 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.net 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.

Shirley Luke on the Tattooed Poets Project

Today's Tattooed Poet is Shirley Luke, who sent us this image of what she refers to as her "Mama Dragon Tattoo:"

Shirley tells us:

"I got inked 14 years ago when my son was born. He was a premie, born 2 months early. I got the tattoo when was was released from the hospital. It represents how anyone who messes with my son will get burned. The first letter in his name is in the heart that the dragon holds, protecting my son.

The tattoo was done at a shop in Quincy, Massachusetts by an artist whose name she has forgotten.

Shirley also shared the following poem:

She Wears the Mark

I am the true mother of dragons
red skin dynasty,  rising claws
striking down the dangers
from an unjust society.
A tongue from Africa,
protecting her child,
the next generation
to cross the skies,
burn the mountains
and travel through
forests, following their elders'
path forged by their sacrifice,
so these children of the scaled
flesh will not become beasts
of no nation & blaze
a path of their own.

~ ~ ~

Shirley Jones Luke is a poet and a writer. Ms. Luke lives in Boston, Mass. She has an MFA from Emerson College. Her work merges poetry with memoir. Shirley was a 2017 Poetry Fellow at the Watering Hole Poetry Retreat.

Thanks to Shirley for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2018 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading 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.net 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.

Emily Wolahan on the Tattooed Poets Project

Our next tattooed poet is Emily Wolahan, who shared her ink with us:

Emily tells us:

"My first tattoo was one of the birds in the flock I've got on my arm (the one at the bottom). They are all swallows and this first one I had done immediately after my daughter was born. I was living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England—the first time I'd lived permanently outside the US in over 10 years. As a kid who grew up moving around internationally, I never felt like I had a home and when I relocated to England, the sense of being unmoored hit me again. I chose the swallow because sailors would get a swallow for each 5,000 nautical miles traveled. I felt I'd earned at least one. Later, I liked the idea of having a swarm. The swallow can also symbolize a successful journey and when I had the other swallows done, I was on my way out of Newcastle and headed back to the US."

She also shared the following photo with a couple additional pieces:

Emily added:

"My next tattoos are for my family. On my wrist is an ornate "S & F," my kids Sylvie and Franklin. The band further up that arm is the same design as on my wedding band. This tattoo was done by Greg Rojas at Ed Hardy's Tattoo City in San Francisco. Greg was recommended to me, but I hadn't really put the whole 'Ed Hardy' thing together until I was at the studio. Ed Hardy himself came in while I was on the table for a chat. Greg's since moved up to Petaluma, but I hope I can have him do my next, as-yet-undecided tattoo—he's incredible."

In addition to her tattoos, Emily shared " old poem, in honor of when the tattoos happened," noting that "the title is from Thomas Hardy—the 'sly and unseen' day is the one when death comes:

SLY AND UNSEEN

The infant cannot stop laughing. 

In the white gallery, his mother inspects 

where concrete meets a burst of dirt feeding 

blades. Freshly painted walls abut 

the grass line guttering. 

She watches it fed synthetic sun.  

Exhibit: new air, new cycle. 

The infant laughing. 

Below a flat gallery of clouds, the city pigeon 

must rise, beating against the volume 

of empty space, its intricate layer, 

feather moving air.  

Hollow bones espouse its inaccessible landscape, 

push higher, higher, until pressure changes, 

oxygen changes and turn then to

plummet in an open marriage to the core.  

The backward pump of a bird landing 

in the full sway of pregnant trees, 

their acknowledgement of captive air. 

To step barefoot on the grass,

to change limbs' mobility, lightness in bones, 

coolness between toes and tickled ankle. 

The infant, laughing, 

bids goodbye to the room. The room collapses.  

It seems phenomenal an animal 

can hold still in that air.  

That some solutions 

become answers, their spatial disclosure 

a forklift of readiness. And the rest: 

our unseen day 

carried on and up and away.

~ ~ ~

Emily Wolahan is the author of HINGE, published by the National Poetry Review Press. Her poems have been published in Oversound, Boston Review, Volt, DIAGRAM, Tinderbox, and other places. Her poems have won the Georgia Review Loraine Williams Poetry Prize and the Arts & Letters Unclassifiables Contest. She is Senior Editor at Two Lines Press, Editor of JERRY, and lives in San Francisco. She is currently an Affiliate Artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts.

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

This entry is ©2018 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading 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.net 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.

Three for Thursday, Part 3: Molly Raynor on the Tattooed Poets Project

As mentioned in two earlier posts today (here and here), this Thursday we are celebrating three poets with three linked tattoos:

We already celebrated Lauuren Whitehead and Mariama Lockington's poems (and tattoos) in the previous posts, so last, but not least is Molly Raynor.

In case you missed them, the tattoos were inspired by Mariama's pose during sunset on Venice Beach in L.A.:

This image, burned in the sunset, was inked on these friends' wrists, exemplifying their connection and friendship.

That's Molly in the Middle

Molly's poem follows:

>>>>>> sisterchurch <<<<<<

for mari & lauren

in the temple of your cracking laugh i bend / praise the way poetry penned us kin freshman year /
when you borrowed my magenta pants & i wrote you a note after the slam / asking you to be my
friend / how bold we were / how unbroken / open as summer windows

>>>

in our dingy ann arbor apartment we watched sex and the city & played egyptian ratscrew / scratching
each other with acrylic nails / rhinestones glittering like nightsky / in our first apartment in oakland
we watched america’s next top model / fridge full of faded poems / chorizo & avocado / kitchen walls
stained red with mole from the day we smashed 16 peppers to paste with bittersweet chocolate &
lard from frida’s cookbook / proud / candles lit on spell-soaked altars / draped in gold & lavender /
we found faith / peeled off our skinny jeans & pulled on our fat pants / flung our bras across the
room under the wise eyes of billie, badu & gwendolyn / ghosts of madwomen insulating our walls
in winter / when the sun sunk we’d blast beyonce & dig through each other’s closets / line our eyes
with black kohl / because friday night in oakland was like the first time a boy kissed me with his
tongue / we’d head to lukas where we became other women / all ginger rum & slow wine & eyes
like baited fishhooks / trying to reclaim that which was taken from us / we, our own best dreams

>>>

in the gospel of your gossip / in the pews of your pep talks i kneel / praise the way i am seen by
you / so many secrets stitched into seams of our lips / hips thickening with each other’s
heartbreak / came home for holidays & parents wondered if we’d been eating or fucking too much
when it’s the weight of bearing witness women carry round our waists / you archivists of my
darkest days / how you lifted the garland of grief / slashed the sash of shame to scarlet scraps of
laughter & fuck him & mint-laced hookah smoke curling up to god / the darksugar of your love
lifting me / so many times you saved me from myself

>>>

lil’ wayne & alanis morissette echoing down the 1 / the sweat & shimmer of girlbodies unfurling like
jasmine buds in teapot / steam rising from our thirsty, sturdy hearts / we made pilgrimage to
ocean / greyed lip of froth & foam / made fort of sunbleached wood / carved our names into the
sand beneath the setting sun / took a picture of mari dancing / bird body silhouetted against burnt
persimmon sky / dusky croon of gulls flocking above us / then on a whim, went to the tattoo shop
in la & inked that frozen moment into our wrists / three of her spread into us: bracelet of chosen
blood / my madwomen, you gather me / my kindest mirrors / my sweetest marrow / you are the
salvaged shine of this heavy country / the glory cake in my tattered mouth / you unsorry my
tongue / ease the violence from my tired body

>>>

in the scripture of our group text i press palms together /
                        psalms of sisterchurch blooming from our fenty fuchsia lips /
                                                                                                       you are the holiest thing i know

~ ~ ~

Molly Pershin Raynor is a poet and educator. She has facilitated poetry workshops in prisons, halfway houses, high schools and teen centers, and traveled coast to coast performing spoken word. Molly co-founded RAW Talent (now the RYSE Performing Arts Program) in Richmond, California. Her work is highlighted in the documentary film on Netflix, "Romeo Is Bleeding," which follows her co-founder Donte Clark and their students as they fight to address gun violence through spoken word and theater. She won a Jefferson Award for Public Service and a Teachers 4 Social Justice Award. Molly just moved back to her hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, to serve as the Literary Arts Program Manager at the Neutral Zone Teen Center. Her poetry has been featured on NPR and published in several literary magazines including Vinyl, The Rumpus and Porkbelly Press.

Thanks to Molly (and Mariama and Lauren) for sharing their poems and tattoos with us here on The Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2018 Tattoosday. The poems and tattoos are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading 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.net 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.

Three for Thursday, Part 2 - Lauren Whitehead on the Tattooed Poets Project

As mentioned in an earlier post today (here), today we are celebrating three poets with three linked tattoos:

We already celebrated Mariama Lockington's poem (and tattoo) in the previous post, and Molly Raymor's will appear later today.

In case you missed the previous post, the tattoo was inspired by this photo of Mariama on Vencie Beach in L.A.:

The three poets are inextricably linked by their friendship and shared tattoo.

This post features the poem from Lauren Whitehead (pictured on the right, above):

we three bitches

three cheers for my bad bitches, spread out wide

at the public library table with books & pens & bold

patterned pencil skirts split up the back, spines

stretched long, fully reading for the gods. holy

& holy & holy, amen for my bottom bitches, writing

it all down right now, stacking shelf after shelf

with palm sized notebooks, thick with pretty wisdoms

& perfect elegies for the women we should have been.

three battle stars for these sergeants, crafting in chaos,

reciting her saints, pulling through like prayer beads

after hauling all her baggage back & forth across

landmass, skirting whirlpools & mantraps, unlearning

over & again all the petty wishes of a dying class.

three survivals in a winter place for each one

of my madwomen, making mistakes & keeping

receipts. cussing out when cussed at. throwing hands

at whoever hands need be thrown at, a thoroughbred

stance in grey patent leather slingbacks. clap it back

for my bridesmaids. my believe me bitches. my loyalists

& keepsake queens with their pressed petals & wind

chimes & precious stones grabbed up at low tide, hung

like armor around their wrists & necks. rare jewels

for all my heavies. just jewels upon jewels upon glitter

upon gleam, draped over each titty in every color

of her flag, shine for these bitches, fluent in multiple

Englishes, translating tarot cards & star charts & every

brand of fuck shit some fool might think to speak

into her yard. three charms for these hungry witches,

my seal a spell with a salt bath bitties, old poem

on a postcard hoes, old open palm in the dark ass tricks,

sipping tea & reading leaves & sitting back sometimes,

just not saying shit. keep it quiet for my humble woes,

slinking through a dance floor like snakes in high grass,

untouchable bitches, thrifty chicks making earrings

out of everything, every bad lover, every bad look,

every unforgivable intention. a wash, a wash, a wash

on all your houses. three rings for all your fingers. three

orisha in the morning singing sweet songs outside

your window. oh wonders, oh royals, you imperfect

gods, three burnings for your birthdays. three alters

facing west. three mantras of your names in every river

when i arrive. three Frida’s holding hands. three gardenia

for each ear. three wishes for you sisterfriends: all your

worries ribbon tied to the foot of a black bird flown

away, away, away. every unworthy out through

one well earned door. & these two hands. these only

two hands i have to offer. two hands & two wrists

at your back, by your side, skin to skin, for always.

~ ~ ~

Lauren Whitehead is a writer, performer, and MFA recipient in dramaturgy (Columbia University). She writes in several forms including poetry, nonfiction, and drama. Her work has been published in Apogee, Winter Tangerine, HEArt Online, and in selected anthologies. She has performed in venues around the country, notably: The Apollo Theater and The Kennedy Center. She is a Sundance Theater Lab Fellow and she teaches advanced playwriting and dramaturgy at The New School. More info: laurenawhitehead.com

Thanks to Lauren (and Molly and Mariama) for sharing their poems and tattoos with us here on The Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2018 Tattoosday. The poems and tattoos are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading 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.net 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.

Three for Thursday, Part 1- Mariama Lockington on the Tattooed Poets Project

I reached out to our next tattooed poet, Mariama Lockington, back in February and she responded with an intriguing story and photo:

As one can see, those are three tattoos on three wrists. And, yes, one is Mariama's, and the other two belong to poets, as well! The three tattoos are inspired by the following photo of Mariama dancing on Venice Beach during sunset:

She explained, "it's the image we decided best represents our friendship," and, to her personally, "it symbolizes freedom, friendship, and curiosity."

So, today, we will be celebrating three tattooed poets, all with linked tattoos. The other poets, Lauren Whitehead and Molly Raynor, will have posts appearing later today.

(left to right) Mariama Lockington, Lauren Whitehead and Molly Raynor

Here's Mariama's poetic contribution:

so we never

for molly and lauren

here is a prayer for the bottoms of our feet

worn tough from neon colored sandals bought for

9.99 at the superstore on e. 14th  that also sold

leggings in every sexy girl pattern you could imagine

fake eyelashes and nail jewels & don’t forget

the banana hoop earrings as big a circus rings

we hung from our ears like ornaments, even though

our mamas warned of stretched lobes & infections

here is a prayer for how thick we were in those first months

our thighs rubbing together, making church songs

as we walked the lake eating breakfast sandwiches

stuffed with bacon & avocado

ignoring the thirty-something year olds

sweat-faced & out of breath passing us on either side

here is a prayer for short skirts & thai iced tea

the shady corner of an empty baseball field

where we stacked books of poetry next to half filled journals

smoked blunts or snuck sips of warm mimosas

while we scribbled urgent love letters to ourselves

along with the rhythm of shirtless men

playing basketball on the courts behind us

here is a prayer for our twenty-three year old bodies

for our self-assured yet searching hips

for the hands that attempted to guide our movement

into sticky corners of sound at kittys, lukas, or baobabs

for our dances that could not be contained or predicted

for standing on speakers & whispering into the ear of a DJ

for the wild-yell in our throats when our song came on

for the fake numbers & secret kisses & quick fucks

we owned because we were curious, because we wanted

here is a prayer for how we flung ourselves into lonely

our new womanhood all wrapped up in the mouth of the bay

for the dinosaurs stretching their necks out to us in greeting

as we emerged from the West Oakland tunnel at 1am

our heads slammed full of dizzy visions while our arms

swayed at our sides with the kick & kink of the train

here is a prayer for driving in a minivan along the 1

the coast moving next to us like a great whale

for the cliffs we dangled our legs from

the beaches we carved our names into

for the jade & driftwood & crab shells we gathered

all our evidence of being lost & broken & still free

   

here is a prayer for us, my hearts  

so we never forget how to return

~ ~ ~

Mariama J. Lockington is the author of the poetry chapbook The Lucky Daughter (Damaged Goods Press, 2017), and her novel-in-verse Questions I Have For Black Girls Like Me is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux— Books for Young Readers in 2019. Mariama calls many places home, but currently lives in Lexington, KY. You can find more of her work at www.mariamajlockington.com.

Thanks to Mariama (and Molly and and Lauren, in advance) for sharing their poems and tattoos with us here on The Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday! Be sure to come back later today to see Molly and Lauren's poems!

This entry is ©2018 Tattoosday. The poems and tattoos are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading 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.net 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.

Cindy Goncalves and Her Cantarinha de Segredo (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Today's tattooed poet is Cindy Goncalves, who shared this lovely tattoo:

Cindy explained the background and significance of this piece:

"The Cantarinha de Segredo ('Small Pitcher of Secrets') is the staple of my family’s hometown Molelos, Portugal and its traditional barro preto, a style of clay-based pottery known for its deep black color and metallic finish. I wanted to keep the piece as realistic as possible to emphasize the simple, traditional beauty of the Cantarinha - and the craft in general - and my artist, Phil Da Silva (@phil_da_silva_) from 7 Tattoo Gallery (@7tattoogallery) in Newark, NJ had the patience, passion, and expertise that helped do exactly that."

Cindy also shared the following poem:

Os Segredos da Cantarinha

Um

All black everything

like the soul and clothes

of older women

   

sitting on shabby benches

trading recipes for gossip

tussling aventais in their hands

cleaning off the dirt

of morning’s work.

Dois

Assim como era

no princípio.

her husband’s heavy hand

on his bottle;

on her cheek

takes the body of Christ

every Sunday

Agora e sempre.

Amen.

Três

Fields only clear food,

not the conscience.

Still, the priest’s robes

are worth more

than the fields

of the poor.

Quatro

O terço,

the mother’s noose

around her child’s fears.

She doesn’t have all the answers,

but her caldo verde

makes you forget

there were ever questions.

Cinco

At the jogo da freguesia,

inhaling deep the way avô did

young lovers run out of cigarettes

to keep their mouths busy

after making out behind the bleachers.

Seis

the sound

of liberation

is loudest

from a staticky radio.

Sete

Seven

is sacred.

It is the number of kings

in cleats.

Oito

compassion fills rooms

with hay beds for

strangers keeping promises

on the soles

of bleeding feet.

Nove

black boats carry

more heartache

than fishermen

and no one understands

saudade

like their wives

Dez

the current of an open ocean

does not compare

to the country’s lifelines:

O Douro.

O Mondego.

O Tejo.

O Sado.

O Guadiana.

Onze

Forest fires

have left some

with nothing but the ash

on their forehead,

Wednesday

from hell.

Doze

everything

we never say

~ ~ ~

Born and raised in Elizabeth, NJ, Cindy Goncalves is a Luso-American twenty-something currently pursuing a master’s in Counseling from Kean University. She was a featured Newark Voices poet in the 2016 Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark, and continues to work with Dodge as a visiting poet in the Poetry in Schools program.  Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @cindayumm.

Thanks to Cindy for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday and the Tattooed Poets Project!

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