Jessica Lakritz with e e cummings on Her Ribs

Let's just call today Literary Rib Tattoo Day on the Tattooed Poets Project!

We had Goethe this morning, and now we have e e cummings, on the ribs of Jessica Lakritz:

Here's a closer look:

Jessica tells us:

"The first tattoo I ever got was in 2011, four lines from the ee cummings poem you said Is, and they still ring as true to me as the day Cheyenne Sawyer (@cheyennesawyer) from Atlas Tattoo (@atlastattoo) in Portland, Oregon put them there. I will never forget that he called me the night before saying his hand was slammed in a car door and he wasn't sure if he could do it. It was my first tattoo, and I really wanted it to be perfect, but I also knew he was pretty much the best tattoo artist in the city, and he was squeezing me in a between other tattoos because it wouldn't take long. He had no other openings for months, so I went with it. When he called in the morning, he said he was ok, and I asked, are you sure? He said, don't worry Jessica. And so it went."

This is the cummings poem, in full:

you said Is

you said Is
there anything which
is dead or alive more beautiful
than my body,to have in your fingers
(trembling ever so little)?
                           Looking into
your eyes Nothing,i said,except the
air of spring smelling of never and forever.

....and through the lattice which moved as
if a hand is touched by a
hand(which
moved as though
fingers touch a girl's
breast,
lightly)
        Do you believe in always,the wind
said to the rain
I am too busy with
my flowers to believe,the rain answered

And Jessica sent one of her poems, as well:

Surrender

Start here: bend over
an open window, floor 4
that’s El Raval screaming
in la madrugada, asking
instead of praying like a slave.
I can feel you
listening, the vibrato
of a hive of bees, can you
choose your thoughts?
Don’t answer. I’ve been a blackbird
circling the temples of the soul,
mostly eyes and longing.
And then I appeared
inside la madrugada
of the mind and the blackbirds
around the temple spelled out
SURRENDER
over that patient piece of sky.

~ ~ ~

Jessica Lakritz (@jessandthesea)  is the author of You Had Me at Topography, which she describes as a "story in poems told using the technique of Julio Cortázar in his novel Hopscotch. She is "a poet, a writer, a dreamer, a traveler, a joy billionaire." Right now, her main project is called Sex on Sundaze, a fascinating adventure "where poetry meets the human body as its canvas." She writes new, original poems inspired by the model(s) featured. She tells us "the project has evolved to create a greater connection between words and our human sense of touch, as a necessary part of writing on people is touching them." You can find Jessica on http://jessicalakritz.com or on http://sexonsundaze.com, as well as on Instagram @sexonsundaze and Facebook facebook.com/sxonsundaze/.

Thanks to Jessica for sharing her art with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2017 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.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.

Seth's Phoenix

Yesterday's post featured a sleeve from a guy named Phoenix. Today we have a sleeve that centers around a phoenix.

Anyone who's spent any time in New York City could tell you that bike messengers have a lot of great ink. Not all, of course, but quite a few. Fixtures in the city streets, especially in warmer months, if they're not zipping by on their bikes, you can often catch a glimpse of something cool. However, I've featured very few of these folks, just because they're usually in such a hurry, it's hard to catch them.

Fortunately, I spotted Seth securing his bicycle under Madison Square Garden late one afternoon back in September, and I had a chance to compliment his sleeve, at the center of which is this phoenix:

Sleeves are often challenging to portray on Tattoosday, as they generally require multiple shots and several takes, preferably in a controlled environment, like, say, a tattoo studio. But I always try to do my best to capture more than just the central element.

Seth credits his work to Jacob Redmond, when he was at Oddball Studios in Portland, Oregon. Redmond has since moved to Atlas Tattoo, also in Portland.

Thanks to Seth for sharing his phoenix with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 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.

Petra's Tattoo with Teeth

A couple weeks back, I was coming out of my office at 7 Penn Plaza when a woman named Petra walked by with this tattoo on her foot:

When I stopped her and introduced myself, she was happy to share it with us here on Tattoosday.

Petra explained that this is the skull of a Velociraptor. When I asked why this particular design for a tattoo, she elaborated:

"Velociraptor is my spirit dinosaur. They're small and quick and very vicious and I identify with that as a person ... I really like dinosaurs. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a rock-climbing paleontologist, so I knew it was something that I'd like, you know, for the rest of the time I have my skin on."

This is Petra's first tattoo, and she got it inked by Cheyenne Sawyer at Atlas Tattoo in Portland, Oregon.

Thanks to Petra for sharing this cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!