Francesco Levato on the 2020 Tattooed Poets Project

Welcome, friends, to the twelfth annual celebration of tattooed poets on Tattoosday! Here's hoping everyone is well and looking forward to enjoying a month of poetry and tattoos!

Francesco Levato is our first tattooed poet, who actually sent this to me back in June 2018. He got lost in the shuffle last year, so I wanted to have him lead the way in 2020 with the following tattoo:

Francesco tells us that this tattoo is from the cover of his chapbook jettison/collapse (AngelHousePress, 2015). He notes that "the graphic is meant to be evocative of redaction." He credits Garett (@gj619nca) at Vivid Tattoo (@vividtattoo) in San Diego as the tattoo artist.

Francesco also sent us the following poem, from jettison/collapse:

[Sidenote] The practical activity of externalization.

I sing myself, divine and unbleached, free of external determinant, of the bondage of ambiguity. I am bone and blood. In the maelstrom of affect I am concrete. I speak, and through me speaks the lexical. I name: white bull, vulture, suture, stone, ribcage, flame, smoke, sword. And in turn I am constructed: not stone, but susceptible to, not ribcage, but assembled in part, missing part, not sword, but one capable of wielding. If I say I took up sword against my brother, you can be sure “I” signifies the concept of my physicality, “sword” the material form of the sign, the action, though not illustrated, can be heard, felt, tasted. You can be sure “I” did.

~ ~ ~

Francesco Levato is a poet, a literary translator, and a new media artist. Recent books include Arsenal/Sin Documentos; Endless, Beautiful, Exact; Elegy for Dead Languages; War Rug; Creaturing (as translator); and the chapbooks A Continuum of Force and jettison/collapse. He has collaborated and performed with various composers, including Philip Glass, and his cinépoetry has been exhibited in galleries and featured at film festivals in Berlin, Chicago, New York, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Poetry, a PhD in English Studies, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Literature & Writing Studies at California State University San Marcos.

Thanks to Francesco for helping us launch the 2020 Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2020 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.

Samuel Piccone on the Tattooed Poets Project

Today's tattooed poet is Samuel Piccone, who sent us this photo:

Samuel explained:

This tattoo was done by Chris Henry (@chrishenry_tattoos) at Tainted Hearts Creations (@taintedheartscreations) in Greeley, Colorado (he has since opened his own studio in San Francisco with a few other artists from Tainted Hearts called Tattoo Boogaloo @tattooboogaloo). Most of my tattoos were done there, and Chris did [the] majority of them.

This tattoo is the cover art for Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s collection of stories, Mandarins.

I was introduced to Akūtagawa in an undergraduate modern literature course at the University of Northern Colorado and was hooked immediately. I was just starting to write poetry, and to read short stories that were so imagistic and experimental blew my mind, so much so that I went to the bookstore right after class and bought everything I could find of his, which included this collection. Around this time, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and it felt like I had finally discovered a voice that reflected the strange, melancholic beauty of the world I was experiencing myself. He holds a special place in my life as a person and a writer, and whenever I’m looking for a way to say the sad thing in the most beautiful way, I can turn to any story of his and find what exactly what I’m looking for.

Samuel sent us the following poem, as well:

Nocturne Domestica

There are ghosts inside you that haven’t eaten in centuries;
I bought a nightlight for your side of the bed
hoping to chase the shadows from your body,
unblacken the toothy bruises on my neck.
I wanted the plastic luster of a half-moon
to turn bite marks into the glossed feathers
one finds thrashed and littered after a kill,
a sign there’s nothing left to consume.
But in the dead quiet of afterglow,
night is a slow blue pang, and it drains me,
how you kiss like love is something to feed.
Every wound I manage to close peels open like a husk.
What if marriage is like this, just two people in a room
afraid to starve alone? Like nightjars with fractured beaks,
all we have is the hunger on our tongues, petrified mothdust
under our talons, a bed that deepens with each lick.

~ ~ ~

Samuel Piccone is the author of the chapbook Pupa (Anhinga Press, 2018). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including, Southern Indiana Review, Passages North, American Literary Review, and Columbia Poetry Review. He received an MFA in poetry from North Carolina State University and serves on the poetry staff at Raleigh Review. Currently, he resides and teaches in Nevada. Read more at samuelpiccone.com

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

This entry is ©2019 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.

Adam Clay & Ashbery (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Our next tattooed poet is Adam Clay, who shared this colorful literary tattoo:

How is this a literary tattoo? We'll let Adam explain:

"My tattoo was done by Stephanie White (@stephanietattoos) at Deluxe Tattoo (@deluxetattoochicago) in Chicago. I’ve always loved John Ashbery’s Three Poems and decided to adapt a tattoo from the cover art by Trevor Winkfield. 

At first it felt strange to only use part of the work, but I was reminded of the opening from Ashbery’s 'The New Spirit': I thought that if I could put it all down, that would be one way. And next the thought came to me that to leave all out, would be another, and truer, way. The partial omission seemed right in line with Ashbery.

Adam also shared the opening poem from his latest book, Stranger (Milkweed Editions, 2016). He told us the poem "speaks directly to Ashbery's poem 'The Room."

To Take Note of Where We Are

Plainly spoken, I am responding to you.

Despite our best efforts to will it shut,

the proof of the world’s existence

can best be seen in its insistence,

in its opening up. Should we get lost,

let us be lost in a familiar space, surrounded

by every motion of the unnamed and unseen

until the moment they appear. With the sofa

in a slightly different place this morning,

the room resembles a dream of the room:

the details remain present and realistic

while everything bends toward one wall

in particular. I know what you want,

but the wind will not concern itself with us.

~ ~ ~

Adam Clay’s most recent book is Stranger (Milkweed Editions, 2016). A fourth book, To Make Room for the Sea, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, Denver Quarterly, The Georgia Review, Tin House, Boston Review, jubilat, The Iowa Review, The Pinch, and elsewhere. He is editor-in-chief of Mississippi Review, a co-editor of TYPO Magazine, and a Book Review Editor for Kenyon Review. He teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Southern Mississippi. His website is http://www.adamclay.org

Thanks to Adam for sharing his tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday and 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.

Sarah, Smoke and Mirrors

At the beginning of June, I met Sarah on the Broad Street platform in Lower Manhattan, and had a nice conversation about her tattoos. This was the one that sparked my interest:

This is a tattoo adapted from one of the cover versions of author Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions.

I'm a sucker for a good literary tattoo, and Gaiman (@neilhimself) is Sarah's favorite writer. She wears this art, adapted and tattooed by Gerald Feliciano (@geraldfelciano) at East Side Ink (@eastsideink), with pride.

Now, I'm going to do something unusual here. Instead of sharing Sarah's other tattoo that I photographed, I'm going to make you wait until tomorrow. It's likewise literary, but it had a much greater impact on me, and I want to devote a fuller post to it. Come back tomorrow to see what the fuss is about!

Thanks to Sarah for sharing her cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2016 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.

Birdwatching on Governor's Island

Last summer at the NYC Poetry Festival, I met Rachel, whose thigh tattoo filled me with happiness:

If you recognize the image, then we can be friends. It's inspired by the cover of Tom Robbins' third novel Still Life With Woodpecker.

It's always fun to find a Tom Robbins fan!

Rachel also had this bird on her inner arm:

She told me that this image, of an Eastern Bluebird, is inspired by a Cuban postage stamp. It acknowledges her Cuban heritage.

Alas, the artists responsible for these beauties were not recorded for posterity's sake and attempts to reach Rachel for follow-up questioning have been fruitless.

Thanks to Rachel for sharing these cool tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2016 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.

Elisa's Pulp Tattoo by Karel Mato

Once in a blue moon, I'll get off of my bike on the bike path to ask people about their tattoos. I rarely will disembark and hop off onto a sidewalk to interview someone. However, this summer I did just that, back in August, when riding along Ridge Boulevard in Brooklyn, I saw a woman with an amazing tattoo in front of the Bay Ridge branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.

I can only imagine how disconcerting it is to have some guy jumping off his bike to ask about your tattoo but, fortunately for me, Elisa was forthcoming and allowed me to take a photo of this gorgeous piece on her upper left arm:

Elisa gave me some details about this incredible tattoo:

"I love pulp paperbacks, and the art work on the covers. I collect them. One of my favorite artist's is Robert Maguire. His covers are beautiful. I also love Jim Thompson. This is the cover art from [his 1957] book called, Wild Town. I love her, and identify with the emotion and clandestine darkness of this cover. 

It was hard to choose a cover, I have many I adore... but I am 100% happy. I can hardly wait for my the next one...."

Elisa credited this tattoo to an artist named Karel Mato, who works out of Electric Church Tattoo Parlour in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Karel is a good friend of Elisa's and he tattooed this piece on one of his visits to New York. If you're interested in Karel's work, check out his shop's Facebook page, linked above, and see some more of his amazing tattoos.

Thanks to Elisa for sharing her tattoo and the story behind it with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2014 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.

John and the Savannah Bird Girl

Long time readers of Tattoosday may remember I used to find a lot of contributors in Penn Station, across the street from where I worked for many years. This past September, I started a new job downtown, on Broad Street, and this tattoo was the first one I found for the site in my new neighborhood:

This tattoo is on the back of John's calf, and was inked by Lisa from Whatever Tattoo on St. Marks Place in Manhattan.

He explained it was the Savannah Bird Girl, most familiar to many people as the statue on the cover of John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil:

John explained, "I loved the book and I just fell in love with the statue.”

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

This entry is ©2014 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.

See Naomi's Tattoo: Life Doesn't Frighten Her

Well, it's a new year here on Tattoosday, and we still have leftover posts from 2012. But since it's in the 20s today in New York City, and we don't see a lot of work over the winter, I'm always happy to share posts from warmer days.

Going back to July, I was on the DeKalb Avenue subway platform in Brooklyn when I passed Naomi and had to stop and talk to her about her forearm tattoo:

Being a big fan of books, I recognized this as the cover of Maya Angelou's children's story Life Doesn't Frighten Me. Of course, while talking with Naomi, she reminded me whose art graced the cover.

The book is beautifully illustrated with the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat, a popular New York artist whose paintings exploded into popularity in the 1980s.

She told me she got this more than fifteen years ago from a tattooist named "Batman" who worked out of Sacred Tattoo at the time.

She explained, "I really like Basquiat and then I saw the cover on the book and I really liked the book and thought I have to have this done."

Thanks to Naomi for sharing her tattoo with us for the first post of a new year!

This entry is ©2013 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Stephen Caratzas

Today's tattooed poet is Stephen Caratzas, who was sent our way via Jillian Brall, a tattooed poet who has appeared on the Tattooed Poets Project twice before (here and here).

Stephen sent along this cool photo:

The tattoo in question is on his wrist. For a closer look:

Stephen explains:

"The tattoo is a griffin, inspired by an image of a griffin holding a Walther PPK automatic pistol on the cover of Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The artist, whose first name was Mike - don't recall his last name - decided to make the gun into the griffin's paw, which I agreed was a sensible idea.

I got the idea for a tattoo on the inside of my wrist from one of the characters (Casper, I believe) in Larry Clark's film, Kids. I liked the idea of having a visible tattoo even while wearing a long-sleeve dress shirt."

The tattoo is among eight Stephen has, and was inked at Fun City Tattoo on Macdougal Street in Manhattan back in the late 1990s.

Stephen sent us several poems, but I liked this one best:

THE NEW CORONERS

I never felt so good as when a waiter

in Amsterdam called me monsieur

after ordering beef champignon

putting his pen to his lips and looking off

“I believe monsieur has ordered the better dish”

so then you ordered it too

in a place called De Oude Doelen

(the old aims the old targets the old goals)

a drunk at the bar sang along with the jukebox

for years afterward I searched for the song

it wasn’t Elvis but it was sad

the song and the drunk and it was our last meal

when we two parted it was inevitable

it always is it always is

~ ~ ~

Stephen Caratzas is a writer, musician and visual artist living in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. His writing has been published in Terra Incognita, Maintenant 5, the tiny, and many other journals.

Thanks to Stephen for sending us his tattoo and poems! We here at Tattoosday are grateful for his contribution.


This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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: Jeanann Verlee

Here on the final day of the 2010 Tattooed Poets Project, we are featuring two tattooed poets (in two separate posts).

First up is Jeanann Verlee, who holds the distinction of being the one poet this year who met with me in person to discuss their tattoo.

Jeanann offered up her upper left arm:


The incredible detail of this piece is in the hummingbirds:



This whole tattoo is based on the cover art from her just-released first book Racing Hummingbirds (Write Bloody Press, 2010).


Jeanann knew she wanted her next tattoo to have something to do with the upcoming book. When she had the opportunity to work with an artist she respected, Tyson Schroeder, Jeanann held off on getting new ink and waited to see his art for the cover. She was happy she waited and, loving what she saw, she took the design Tyson created to her tattoo artist, Mark Harada at East Side Ink.

The racing hummingbirds design was placed adjacent to one of Jeanann's approximately fifteen other tattoos. The piece already on her arm consisted of a symbol comprised of Celtic and Nordic runes, and calla lilies, which represent transformation.

It was truly a pleasure meeting Jeanann at Grand Central Station and talking with her about her tattoos and her poetry. One of her poems, dedicated to poet Eboni Hogan, can be seen here over on BillyBlog. Eboni's tattoo (here) follows this post, and her poem is dedicated to Jeanann.

Thanks to Jeanann for taking the time to meet with me, sharing her tattoo, and rounding up an exciting 2010 Tattooed Poets Project!

*****

JEANANN VERLEE is a former punk rocker who collects tattoos and winks at boys. She is author of Racing Hummingbirds (Write Bloody Press, 2010) and her work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including The New York Quarterly, PANK, FRiGG, Danse Macabre, and Not A Muse, among others. An acclaimed performance poet who co-curates the weekly reading series Urbana Poetry Slam at the Bowery Poetry Club, Verlee has performed and facilitated workshops across North America. She was co-author and performing member of national touring company The Vortex: Conflict, Power, and Choice!, charter member of the annual Spoken Word Almanac Project, and is an ardent animal rights and humanitarian activist. She lives in New York City with her best pal (a rescue pup named Callisto) and a pair of origami lovebirds. She believes in you. Learn more at JEANANNVERLEE.com.

Cogito Chuck Robbins (Literary Ink)

Sometimes I abbreviate post titles and they seem nonsensical, like one of those captcha messages, or a subject line in a morsel of spam.

So I'm sticking with this title "Cogito Chuck Robbins" because I like the way it sounds. So there. It will all make sense eventually.

I met Chris outside of Penn Station one Friday afternoon, intrigued by his forearm tattoo:


"Cogito ergo sum" is a Latin phrase that means, in English, "I think, therefore, I am." It is attributed to the 17th Century French philosopher René Descartes.

This was the first of Chris' three tattoos. He is a philosophy and creative writing major at SUNY New Paltz. This phrase is the "missing link in a belief system," or, in his words, "what I always knew, but never knew".

The tattoo was done at a shop in East Meadow, New York.

Chris also has this dead bird near his right elbow:


Inked at Skin Deep Tattoo in Levittown, this is inspired by the art on the cover of Chuck Palahniuk's Lullaby.

Work from Skin Deep has appeared previously on Tattoosday here. Palahniuk also has quite a cult following, and his work is the most often represented in ink here on Tattoosday. Check out other Palahniuk tattoos here.

And Chris' third tattoo is based on the cover art from one of my favorite authors, Tom Robbins:


This echoes the front of the great book Still Life With Woodpecker, which has made many people a fan of the writer.


The piece, which was inked by Mike Vlad at Triple X Tattoo in Manhattan, is a subtle nod in appreciation of Robbins and his great book. Work from Triple X has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

If you like these pieces, and are a fan of literary tattoos, you should certainly check out Contrariwise, a site dedicated solely to contributors' literary ink.

A hearty thanks to Chris for sharing his tattoos with us here on our site!

Chip and Tom and Frank

Sometimes, the subject of a tattoo is unclear to the un-illuminated eye. Curiosity compels one to ask: what is that?

And the answer makes sense. And one marvels at the mind behind the man (or woman) who says,"Yeah, let's put that on me forever."

Such was the case during rush hour on the N train. An guy named Chip stood nearby and his right forearm intrigued me. I couldn't make out what his tattoos were. Can you?


When I asked, he explained. The top piece is a photograph from a Tom Waits album:

Despite ascertaining this is a Tom Waits photograph, I can't pinpoint where it came from. If anyone knows for certain, please let me know. The tattoo was done by C-Jay at Rising Dragon Tattoos in Manhattan. Work from Rising Dragon has appeared previously here.

Below the Waits tattoo is a Frank Zappa piece:


This is based on artwork that appeared on the back cover of Zappa's autobiography The Real Frank Zappa Book:


This piece was tattooed by an artist he only identified as Chris at Marco's Tattoo in Wakefield, Rhode Island.

Obviously, Chip is a huge fan of both Frank Zappa and Tom Waits. That's all there is to it.

Thanks to Chip for sharing his cool and unusual tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Jerome Sports a Dark Tower Tattoo

I spotted Jerome at the corner of 31st and 7th Avenue talking with a friend.

He offered up the piece above (one of his nine tattoos) with the disclaimer that the top end had to be redone, due to some unfortunate ink running.

Regardless of the small imperfection, it's a pretty sweet tattoo.

The piece is based on the artwork featured on the spines of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.

Jerome was quick to point out, it is not a Guns N' Roses tattoo, which it often is mistaken for. The artwork in question, for example, it is seen at the base of the spine of the sixth book in the series, below:

I have not read the books in which The Gunslinger is a major character, but I know that fans of the series are fierce in their love of the novels.

This was inked by Jon Jon at Cutting Edge Body Arts in Manhattan. Work from Cutting Edge has appeared before on Tattoosday here.

Thanks again to Jerome for sharing his ink with us here on Tattoosday!

Bryan's Homage to a Classic Pulp Cover

I met Bryan last week outside of Penn Station. He has "7 or 8" tattoos, and he offered up this piece from his left leg.

It's a recreation of a pulp book cover that depicts a woman holding a photograph of a crime in progress, just as the man in the photo who is the perpetrator, is entering the room, gun drawn.

The woman appears to have just developed the picture and her face is wracked with frightened recognition of the fate that is about to befall her.

Bryan recalls coming across this image when he was a teenager. I have a distinct feeling that I've seen this image before as well, but I was unable to find the source material. If anyone knows the title of the book upon which this tattoo is based, please let me know.

Bryan also likes the core element of photography within the tattoo, as he has always been interested in that art form, and he still considers photography a hobby.

This piece was inked by Jason Goldberg at Olde City Tattoo in Philadelphia.

Thanks to Bryan for sharing this amazing leg piece with us here at Tattoosday!