Craig Kite and Wisdom (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Today's tattooed poet is Craig Kite, who sent along this photo:

Craig also offered up this poem:

Wisdom 

When we were teenagers, my sister 

wore a Celtic cross around her neck. 

She said it meant wisdom. 

I sketched the cross onto my shoulder 

and flexed my arm in the mirror. 

The cross felt correct on my shoulder,

as if it were a birthmark that forgot to exist.  

I went to the tattoo parlor. I could have chosen any of the cheap tats available 

from reams of cartoonish mermaids and hearts with harmless arrows impaling Mom. 

I could have easily embroidered my flesh 

with barbed wire around my bicep or with some culturally appropriated concept 

of a “tribal” design. I could have gotten 

a Roswell alien head, or a blue scorpion. 

But I wanted wisdom. An old man 

scarred it into my 18 year old arm. 

When I came home, my mom liked it. 

I’m still kind of ok with it, I guess. 

~ ~ ~

Craig Kite is a poet, comedian, actor and musician based in New York City. He is founding director of Mad Gleam Press LLC for which he curates literary/performance art events and print publications. He is the poetry slam champion of Staten Island, which he represented at the National Poetry Slam and qualified for the Individual World Poetry Slam in 2018. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Great Weather For MEDIA in 2016 and has been published by various literary presses including Fjords Review, Paris Lit Up, Great Weather For MEDIA, Three Rooms Press, The Opiate, Sensitive Skin, Those That This, NYSIA Press, Breadcrumbs, Autonomedia, Gamabzine, and Other Rooms Press. He has a background in journalism/human rights activism and led field operations in Iraq for Christian Peacemaker Teams in 2008-9. He has also worked in Turkey, Chiapas, Guatemala, New Orleans and Algonquin territory, Canada.

Thanks to Craig 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.

Repost: Steve's Phenomenal Celtic Cross

This post appeared originally back in May, 2011, but is worth revisiting on Tattoosday today!

I spotted this at the now-defunct NYC Tattoo Convention at the sadly-departed Roseland Ballroom.

Happy St. Patrick's Day all!

~ ~ ~

Among the many amazing tattoos I saw last Saturday, this cross belonging to Steve was among my favorites:

There's really not much to it, other than amazing colors and craftsmanship.

Steve explained that the design is a nod to his Irish heritage, inspired by the Book of Kells, as exemplified by the Celtic knot in the center of the piece. He estimated that the half-sleeve, which circles the whole arm, represents about 30 hours of work.

He praised the work of Agent at Screamin' Ink Tattoos in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. For those familiar with our annual NYC Tattoo Convention recaps, Screamin' Ink was the shop that featured my favorite tattoo from last year (revisit it here).

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

This entry is ©2011, 2019 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.

Jeff Mann: Wiccan, Pagan, Tattooed Poet

Today's tattooed poet is Jeff Mann, who shared this cool tattoo:

Jeff tells us:

I’ve been a Wiccan and pagan since I was a teenager. Because my bloodlines are Irish, Scots, English, and German, I’ve taken more and more of an interest in the Celtic and Norse gods and goddesses as I’ve aged. In 2003 I sat in on a graduate class at Virginia Tech, a course that focused on Celtic and Norse literature, and I got to read The Elder Edda, The Prose Edda, and a bunch of Icelandic sagas. These readings became the inspiration for my third book of poetry, Ash: Poems from Norse Mythology.

The hammer-wielding thunder god Thor is my favorite Norse deity. I admire his warrior manliness, his earthiness, his strength, and his determination to protect those he cares for. I showed several Thor’s-hammer images to my tattoo artist, Shaun Carroll (@shaun.hotrodtat2) at Hot Rod Tattoo in Blacksburg, Virginia, and he came up with the design, complete with Celtic knots and Wiccan pentagram.

Jeff shared the following poem, as well, which originally appeared in Chelsea Station and in his collection A Romantic Mann:

HOMOMONUMENT, AMSTERDAM

Commemorates all women and men

    ever oppressed and persecuted

        because of their homosexuality.

Pink triangles of granite.

    Three of them, interlocked,

        jutting out into the busy waters

of Keizersgracht.  A smooth

    stone shelf we step onto

        gingerly, as if it were an edge

of rosy ice that might break loose

    and floe us off to sea.  About our feet,

        white wreaths of lilies, peony-

scatter, wilting commemorations

    like those rose bouquets tenderly

        laid about the statue of Anne Frank

just around the corner.  Here, flowers

    share the space with cigarette ends,

        bottle caps, candle butts, the pearly swirls

of wax long cooled.  (Semen’s

    molten moonstone sealing together

        the bellies of lucky lovers, tears freezing

   

a widower’s beard.)   In a safety

    born of sheer coincidence, on this pink

        promontory flanked by the canal’s

wake and flux, we touch history’s

    spilled tallow, calla lily memories

        not our own: the lesbian stoned to death

in the public square, the faggot-

        pyre heaped about the sodomite,

            ashes shoveled from the cooling

furnaces of Buchenwald.  

    Those deaths become our whetstone.

        Upon this pink granite prow sword-sharp

   

and sheer as honed will,

    we sit together, knee to knee,

        in the Dutch sun’s imprimatur,

dipping frites into mayonnaise,

    feeding each another.

        Perfect photo opportunity for those

in tour boats who float by.  They listen to

    the story of the Homomonument, point us out—

        living examples!—aim their cameras, smile.

 ~ ~ ~

Jeff Mann grew up in Covington, Virginia, and Hinton, West Virginia, receiving degrees in English and forestry from West Virginia University. His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in many publications, including Arts and Letters, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Willow Springs, The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, Crab Orchard Review, and Appalachian Heritage. He has published three award-winning poetry chapbooks, Bliss, Mountain Fireflies, and Flint Shards from Sussex; five full-length books of poetry, Bones Washed with Wine, On the Tongue, Ash: Poems from Norse Mythology, A Romantic Mann, and Rebels; two collections of personal essays, Edge: Travels of an Appalachian Leather Bear and Binding the God: Ursine Essays from the Mountain South; three novellas, Devoured, included in Masters of Midnight: Erotic Tales of the Vampire, Camp Allegheny, included in History’s Passion: Stories of Sex Before Stonewall, and The Saga of Einar and Gisli, included in On the Run: Tales of Gay Pursuit and Passion; six novels, Cub, Country, Insatiable, Fog: A Novel of Desire and Reprisal (which won the Pauline Réage Novel Award), Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (which won a Rainbow Award), and Salvation: A Novel of the Civil War (which won both the Pauline Réage Novel Award and a Lambda Literary Award); a book of poetry and memoir, Loving Mountains, Loving Men; and three volumes of short fiction, Desire and Devour: Stories of Blood and Sweat, Consent: Bondage Tales, and A History of Barbed Wire (which won a Lambda Literary Award). In 2013, he was inducted into the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival Hall of Fame. He teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Thanks to Jeff for sharing his tattoo and poem 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.

Isobel O'Hare Shares Two Tattoos (and a Poem) on the Tattooed Poets Project

Our next poet, Isobel O'Hare, is sharing two tattoos for Tattoosday.

First up is this cool black and gray piece:

Isobel explains:

"The hare on my right forearm was both a well-planned tattoo and an impulse tattoo. I had fantasized about it for a couple years before getting it done, and one day when I was feeling particularly anxious and in need of a cathartic outlet, I called a tattoo parlor and asked if they had time to fit me in for a custom tat. I walked in, described what I wanted, and a visiting artist from Los Angeles drew it up and my leaping hare was born.

The hare for me means many different things. Obviously, it is related to my last name, but the wild hare has always been an animal to which I have felt a kinship, as well as rabbits. I've had several house rabbits as pets, and I'm sure I will again someday. It was important to me that the hare appear lively and contented without seeming too cartoonish, and I think the artist did a good job making that happen. Every time I look at him, I smile.

The tattoo is definitely also a nod to Watership Down, which affected me deeply as a child. Sometimes when people ask about the tattoo they'll mention that book and I'll say something about adding some blood to it to make the connection more apparent. I like my hare happy, though.

The hare is named Taliesin after the figure in Welsh folklore who, after transforming into various creatures (including a hare) was consumed by the goddess Ceridwen and reborn through her. There is a lot more to the tale, but you'll have to read the Welsh Mabinogion if you want more than I can fit here.

The hare was done by a visiting artist from Los Angeles (whose name I can't remember) at Temple Tattoo (@templetattoo13) in Oakland, California."

Isobel also shared this other tattoo:

Isobel explains:

"The Celtic Trinity Knot on my left wrist was an idea two of my sisters and I had when we were visiting our mother in Virginia. We wanted something to honor our sisterhood, and so we chose this symbol. For me it means a couple other things as well: I went to a Catholic women's college called Trinity, where all of the students referred to one another as sisters, and I belong to a pagan spiritual sisterhood that is rooted in my Welsh, Scottish, and Irish ancestry.

Several people have pointed it out in public and wanted to talk about their Celtic background, too, but my favorite interaction regarding this tattoo occurred in college. I was sitting outside my academic advisor's office waiting to be calling in for an appointment, and a friend walked down the hall and sat next to me. We started chatting and she glanced down at my wrist, saw my tattoo, and asked, 'Are you a witch?'

The knot was tattooed by an artist at Body Art Tattoo Studio in Berryville, Virginia."

Isobel also sent us the following poem, called  "His Flaming Sister," ehich first appeared in The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review in 2013.

His Flaming Sister


Her mother found her in the kitchen

          a knife in her belly        and her head

wedged between the branches of an oak chair.

In this way     one day in the 1960s

           she became an exhibit in this museum of trauma

                        we call family

a craze-dancing    red-haired         blood-bellied girl

          behind this flap with the little round knob

          that reads: Lift Here to See Tragedy.

Lift here to see an eighteen-year-old girl

          shunned by her mother

                     lying in a hospital bed

          sick with blame for what has happened

                     to her body.

Lift here to see the self            divided

          and the crevasse that separates            what they want

                     from her physiology.

Lift here to see the kindness of neighbors

         who     having keys to the house

                     cleaned the kitchen           of all its darkest spots

         washed the white towels and returned

                     everything to the air
                     that held its breath.

~ ~ ~

Isobel O’Hare is a Pushcart-nominated poet and essayist who has dual Irish and American citizenship. She is the author of the chapbooks Wild Materials (Zoo Cake Press, 2015) and The Garden Inside Her (Ladybox Books, 2016). Two of her poems appeared in the anthology A Shadow Map, published in 2017 by Civil Coping Mechanisms Press. You can find her at isobelohare.com or on Twitter @isobelohare.

Thanks to Isobel for sharing her two tattoos and poem with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2017 Tattoosday. The poem 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.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: Susan Sweetland Garay

 Our second tattooed poet today is Susan Sweetland Garay:

Here's a closer look:

Susan elaborates:

"The tattoo I would like to share is one I got recently. It has a Celtic knot modified to symbolize a mother and child. It also has California poppies, a fern, a red clover, a dandelion (the wisher part) and a thistle.

It is all to symbolize motherhood and how becoming a mother has really changed the say I see myself and who I am. The flowers all have meaning too, my mother is from California, and those orange poppies are all over where I live (rural Oregon), the fern is also just a representation of where I am from and where my daughter will grow up. The clover is because the red clover only bloom for a couple of weeks in the spring, and they were in bloom when she was born, I remember focusing on them during the drive to the hospital.  The dandelion is because wishes for me will be different now, since I want things more for her then for myself. The thistle is also a representation of where we live. The spiral is also sort of about the perfection of nature, and how amazing it is what nature (and a woman's body) can do." 

She credits artist Cassidy at Black Rose Tattoo at Solstice Body Arts in Dundee, Oregon, with this crisp and colorful work.

Susan sent us the following poem, which was first published in The Zoomoozophone Review Issue 3 in October 2014.

night breeze

I feel the breeze through
the bedroom window
on a summer night
as I sit with my baby
at my breast,

it’s the end of summer
and finally the coyotes
have returned.

their song comes through
the open window and in the
odd hours of the early morning
they keep me company
in the quiet and the dark.

The cool comes on quickly and
autumn makes herself known
as the warmth of the day
arrives later and later.

Daylight makes lessons learned
in the dark harder to remember.

There is a feeling of relief
and then dismay
when I realize that
I am still myself,
despite the drastic
changes to my
definition.

Stretch marks,
like any other scar,
are a reminder
of where I’ve been
a record on my body
of each destination
and crash.
A mind may forget
but the body remembers.

It is written on my bones
and this body will find a way.

In a time of crisis
I strain to remember
what coyote taught me
about the lighthearted
nature of the universe-
I say it over and over again
in my head, hoping repetition
will make it stick.

Her mouth curves into a wide grin
around my nipple and
again I am in love.

~ ~ ~

Born and raised in Portland Oregon, Susan Sweetland Garay first played among the moss and pines, then the majestic Rocky Mountains, the rolling hills of the Ohio Appalachians and now the lovely vineyards of the Willamette Valley with her husband and daughter. She enjoys writing, growing plants and making art. She has had poetry and photography published in a variety of journals, on line and in print. She was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2014.  Her first full length poetry collection, ApproximateTuesday, was published in 2013.  She is a founding editor of The Blue Hour Literary Magazine and Press.  More of her work can be found at susansweetlandgaray.wordpress.com. 

Thanks to Susan for sharing her work with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 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. 

Head Cross by Needles

There's a guy I've seen around for the past couple of years who I've been dying to ask about his tattoo.

I finally inquired last week and he agreed to share the tattoo, but wished to remain anonymous:

He credited this Celtic cross to Needles at East Side Ink, in New York City.

We'll have something else later in the week by Needles, as well.

Thanks to the gentleman above for sharing his head tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

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: Andrea England

Our next tattooed poet is Andrea England, who submitted this photo of her tattoo:

Andrea explains:

"In 2001, I was able to take a trip to Ireland, the place of my mother’s ancestry, a place that she regretted never having visited. When I returned from Ireland I decided to tattoo her maiden initials on my arm in the original Celtic font used in The Book of Kells; CFM stands for Catherine Fallon McGinnis.

Chameleon in Harvard Square was my choice shop. The funny part is I had a difficult time convincing the artist to work on the inside of my arm. He kept asking me, 'Are you sure you want it there? You aren’t going to be able to hide it. Are you sure you don’t want a smaller font?' After some heckling, he gave me what I wanted. I take pride that she is there, and can’t hide from me or the world."

Here is one of Andrea's poems:

Discourse of Bric-a-brac

Insomnia in a twin bed,
the screech of brakes before
inevitable. Like the stray dog
gigolo, tags intact, jangling,
neighbors clamoring over each.
Who locked whom out. Get out.
Last time. The woo before sex, the sex,
the prayer you will drift asleep first
and the skateboard wheel as it fills each rut
in the walk just before the little boy falls.

Oklahoma City, the morning after
snow when you’ve only thin sandals.
That cold burning you thought you could
control by sleeping in separate beds,
stingray on the beach, insides pecked out,
still breathing and that sad miracle.
It’s disregarding the phone at 4am,
the trill of it or the painter in the dream
when he whispers, You can open your mouth
if you want to. This indecision.

Because your roommate would kill the spiders
behind the blinds, because the dishes in the sink
are desire and desire clutter.
Because in the sixth grade you wore
deodorant but no scent, underwear in the shower,
and watched the cool kids kiss formulas
out of each other after school. It’s because
by Darwin’s calculations we’re still here
surviving, fit to love best uneven,
even when there’s no love left.

~ ~ ~

Andrea England is a student, a mother, poet, and teacher, who resides in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming in, Passages North, Cutthroat Magazine, The DMQ Review, RHINO, and others. Dogs and cold, snowy winters are also worth mentioning as objects of her affection.

Thanks to Andrea for sharing her work with us here 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.

Vincent's Cross Represents Faith and Heritage

Religious tattoos are quite common, as any casual observer of other people's tattoos can tell you. Generally, I don't ask people about them, but every so often I feel inclined, especially when I think they're done nicely.

Take Vincent, for example. I met him in Penn Station and took a picture of this cross on his forearm:

Vincent explained that he drew this design, incorporating Celtic designs, as an acknowledgement of his faith (represented by the cross and the circle, symbolizing the Trinity) and his heritage. His father's ancestry is Welsh, and his mother's family is Italian.



The tattoo was done by at Sacred-X-Pressions in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. He doesn't recall the tattooist's name, but does know he has moved on from that shop.


Thanks to Vincent for sharing his expression of faith and heritage 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.

NYC Tattoo Convention Spotlight: Steve's Phenomenal Celtic Cross

Among the many amazing tattoos I saw last Saturday, this cross belonging to Steve was among my favorites:

There's really not much to it, other than amazing colors and craftsmanship.

Steve explained that the design is a nod to his Irish heritage, inspired by the Book of Kells, as exemplified by the Celtic knot in the center of the piece. He estimated that the half-sleeve, which circles the whole arm, represents about 30 hours of work.

He praised the work of Agent at Screamin' Ink Tattoos in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. For those familiar with our annual NYC Tattoo Convention recaps, Screamin' Ink was the shop that featured my favorite tattoo from last year (revisit it here).

Thanks to Steve for sharing his work 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Martha Serpas

On this, our fourth day of the third annual Tattooed Poets Project, we are honored to have work from Martha Serpas.

Readers may wonder where we find all these tattooed poets. Most come our way by word of mouth, but a small handful, like in Martha's case, agree to participate after we send out e-mail inquiries, without even knowing if a poet is inked or not. Most poets don't even respond, a handful do, but are not tattooed, and once in a blue moon, we find a tattooed poet who is happy to participate.

Anyway, here's one of Martha's tattoos:

Martha explains:

This tattoo is a montage over 20 or so years in the making. First work, Willie [at Willie's Island Tattoos] on Staten Island; Dan [Williams at the Bridgeport Tattoo Shop] in Bridgeport, CT; Bonnie Jean in Yachats, OR at [Tattoo by Design]; and a guy in Houston I never should have let reline it. Bonnie Jean was is old school and taught me that tattooing is like coloring in a book: anybody can do it if the lines are really thick.

The tattoo’s a chronicle of a tumultuous time in my life. The wind/water symbol (my design) traversing the image was first. It felt like a spiritual emblem. The bird represents a goal of peace (brought it in from somewhere). The moliere/Celtic cross  (graphic artist friend, Carla Januska designed) is modeled after the one on the chapel at my divinity school and doubles as a setting sun. It is my graduation ring, of sorts. The feathery flame shapes (Bonnie Jean’s freehand) within the wings and tail came last—my attempt to soften up the image when my life became more tranquil.

I have a small tattoo on my ankle that precedes this one(s); a memorial to my best friend on my thigh; a reverse hurricane symbol on my thumb (post-Katrina); and a symbol of perichoresis (divine revolution) on my forearm. I’ve been told I look like a doodle pad. I get tattooed about every 5 years. If I ever become content with life, I’ll stop trying to achieve the ideal personal emblem. For now, I doodle.

•••••••

Martha also contributed the following poem which, she explained, "was inspired by a photograph on the cover of Tattoo."  One note, Martha adds, is that "Suzanne owned the shop in Ann Arbor where I got my first ankle tattoo: Creative Tattoo by Suzanne. Great T-shirt: Go forth and live as art. I heard she passed away: Her breast piece was amazing."

Tattoo

She knows being chosen means to choose herself

and seals upon her breasts the Sacred Heart—

a thorn-bound garnet against open lilies,

a pink-and-white ink triptych on her chest.

Every shadow, a creed professed by lines

from votive needles to her deepest cells.

Her body gives life to art, reflects the fade

of dying flesh, and honors God’s design.

No second thoughts, she thinks that pain

is easily a choice we make ourselves,

as is admiring her canvas skin

as it ages. Affirmed with words spelled

on a defiant ribbon across her chest,

her blazón: Even the blackest sheep are blessed.

            [Appeared in Côte Blanche (New Issues, 2002)]

•••••••

Martha Serpas’s two collections of poetry are Côte Blanche (New Issues, 2002) and The Dirty Side of the Storm (Norton, 2007). Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, and Southwest Review, and in anthologies such as Bearing the Mystery: Twenty Years of Image and the Library of America’s American Religious Poems. A native of Bayou Lafourche in south Louisiana, she is involved in efforts to restore Louisiana’s wetlands. She teaches creative writing at the University of Houston and is a hospital trauma chaplain.

You can learn more about Martha and her writing at her website, http://www.marthaserpas.com/.

A sincere thanks to Martha for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday!

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.

Cat's Hands-ome Tattoos

I met Cat earlier this week at Borders, which has been the go-to locale for inkspotting during a very sparse winter.

He has fifteen tattoos, but we discussed the two I noticed, on the tops of his hands:

The tattoos are variations on Celtic pagan designs that he modified to make his own.

The right hand represents the chalice of the goddess, who represents expressiveness and creativity. Wiccan principles acknowledge that the goddess is the source of all expression.

Cat's other hand is decorated with a Celtic triquetra. The three markings around the design are letters drawn in the Theban script, each corresponding to the first initials of his three children.

Cat says that these, as well as his other tattoos, were inked by Neo at Village Moon Tattoos in Jackson Heights, in the borough of Queens.

Readers interested in these tattoos may also be interested in checking out our old friend Livia Indica's site NeoPagan Ink.

Thanks kindly to Cat for sharing his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Tony's Celtic Fish, Swimming Up His Calf

Last month, I spotted Tony on the R train after leaving the 14th Street/Union Square station.

About thirteen years ago, his girlfriend was getting a Celtic dog tattoo, and he decided to get inked as well:

These works of art on his left leg derive, he told me, were inspired by illustrations from the Book of Kells.

Book/Manuscript: Book of Kells
VII Century, Ireland / ScotlandPage (Folio): 188v
initial letter I with lion and fish
(from http://www.art-imagery.com/)

Tony explained that he is a SCUBA instructor, so these fish from the mackerel family are a nice link to that vocation.

Not only have these tattoos held up over the years, they are noteworthy because they were inked by Pat Fish in Santa Barbara, who is regarded as one of the premiere artists working with Celtic designs.

I also love the coincidental nature of Fish by Fish.

Thanks to Tony for sharing these amazing tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Kristen's Trilogy of Knots

The 34th Street Platform for the A Train has been very kind to us here at Tattoosday, even more so this summer than in years' past.

Take Kristen, for example. She generously offered up this small portion of her corporeal canvas:

Estimating that she is at least a quarter covered by ink, this "trilogy of knots" was the artist's response to Kristen's request to attach the cobwebs on her elbow to the end of her wrist.

The artist, identified only as "Batman" near Canal and Broadway, was also asked to incorporate a Celtic pattern, as well.

The final result was to Kristen's liking and we here at Tattoosday thank her for sharing the tattoo with all of our readers!

The Tattooed Poets Project: Theresa Senato Edwards

We are launching this second volume of the Tattooed Poets Project with Theresa Senato Edwards.

Theresa seemed like the ideal candidate to kick off the month, as she is the devoted editor of Holly Rose Review, a poetry and tattoo literary arts journal.

Theresa has four tattoos, and picked two to share with us here on Tattoosday.

Her first tattoo was this Celtic symbol on the left part of her upper back:
A closer look:


Theresa tells us that this is the:

"Celtic symbol for motherhood, two dots representing my two sons. The goldish dot for Richard, his birthday in November (November birthstone); the red dot for Troy, his birthday in July (July birthstone). I had asked my younger son, Troy, if he thought it would be cool to have his artwork on my skin forever. He did, so he drew it for me, looking at a pic I got off the internet. Tattoo by Mike Calamita, Lasting Impression Tattooing in Hopewell Junction, NY."

My favorite of Theresa's four tattoos was the third one she received, this holly rose:

Theresa explains that this holly rose is

"a holly branch wrapped around a bloomed red/purplish rose with thorned stem.... [and] symbolizes my parents: my dad's birthday was in December; the holly is one of the plants that represents December. My mom's birthday was in June; the rose represents June. They have both been dead for more than 15 years. I had this done in their memory. That's also where the title of Holly Rose Review comes from, although I didn't know that at the time I got the tattoo. Also done by Mike Calamita."

Check out Theresa's poem "Holly Rose," about this tattoo, over at BillyBlog. You can read more of Theresa's work over on her blog here.

Thanks again to Theresa for helping kick off our second annual Tattooed Poets Project!

Summer's Celtic Cross Honors Her Father

I see a lot of crosses in my travels through the streets of New York City, so they don't generally grab my attention.

This one, however, did:



There's nothing necessarily magnificent about this tattoo, but it just goes to show that a crisp, simple tattoo can be as aesthetically pleasing, sometimes moreso, than an overly-wrought elaborate design.

Summer had this memorial piece done for her father, who passed away in 2005. His initials grace the center of the cross.

It was inked in Tattooville in Linden, New Jersey. This piece is on Summer's left bicep, she also has the comedy/tragedy masks on the right shoulder blade portion of her back.

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

The Tattooed Poets Project: Alex Grant's Totemic Tattoos

Alex Grant is one of the many writers I have met through Facebook via the poet Dorianne Laux. Originally from Scotland, he lives in North Carolina, and sent me the following photos of his tattoos:


The top piece is “a variation on a Celtic totemic symbol …which…suggests totality - Sun, Moon, Stars and sky - and the celebration of all that implies...”.


The banded tattoo below the Celtic piece is a series of Mayan totem symbols. He interprets them as representations of “the cycle of sleep (as in having no awareness), through awakening, through full consciousness”.




These tattoos date back to the early 1990’s (circa 1994-1996) and were inked in Berkeley, California, at Zebra Tattoo & Body Piercing.

These are not the only tattoos Alex has He told me, “I have some others that I don't love so much - including some I did myself with a needle and ink at age 16!”

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

Please be sure to head on over to BillyBlog to read one of Alex's poems, or you can explore more of his work on his web page here.