Allison Wilkins, an Octopus and a Poem in Greek (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Our next tattooed poet is Allison Wilkins, who sent us a couple of her tattoos:

Allison explained the origins of this octopus:

"The octopus tattoo was drawn by my artist friend, Lib Hedgepath, and inked by tattoo artist Ethan (@ethan_franklin_jrt) at James River Tattoo (@jamesrivertattoo) (Lynchburg, VA, 1337 Main Street). I got the tattoo in 2013, a transitional year for me: between the acceptance of and publication of my first book, Girl Who; this was also the year I got divorced. The octopus became a kind of totem animal for me, a sea beast that was highly intelligent and adaptable (I’m a Pisces). Also, it represents the place, Greece, where I eventually found a second home. But at the time I got my tattoo, I just associated Greece with starting over and living authentically."

Then there is this piece on her back:

Allison notes this is a poem by Titos Patríkios and it:

"... was inked by James River Tattoo in 2012. For me, it marked falling in love with a place: Greece. I went there for a summer workshop and met three other incredible women. We designated ourselves Siren Sisters, explored every nook and cranny of that island, ate delicious meals, and wrote poems. I have never felt more connected to a group of women or to myself. This poem, 'My Flesh,' came from a collection of poems that I was reading that summer. My friend, Joanna Eleftheriou, helped me to translate the poem, but also to learn it in Greek. So I suppose, this also marks my beginning of learning to speak Modern Greek."

Allison sent along her poem "Wants New Mythology" from her collection Girl Who:

Wants New Mythology

Her myth begins coming up from the sea

and ends with two sparrows in flight. In between,

the narrative will unfold, but not neatly.

And it won’t be obvious. There’s a long

litany of gods, a token heroine of divine birth.

There will be dancing and chickpeas.

Barrels of white wine. Island moonshine.

After opening in medias res,

(the island god coming up from the sea,)

there follows a long dissertation

on the texture of sand. Then

another about the slight burn

of Greek sun. Then she will skip

to honeysuckle plucked

by an ambiguous hand.

And sea urchins. Rock formations at Sikamia.

She will refuse all battle scenes

and trips to the underworld.

She will make no mention of desire

or music. Yes, she’ll leave the final image

alone: two sparrows, side by side in flight

before parting. One heading left, the other right.

~ ~ ~

Allison Wilkins is the author of Girl Who. Other poems and essays have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Superstition Review, and The Lyric. She is the assistant director for Writing Workshops in Greece
(@WWIGThasos). She tweets @wilkins_poet.

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

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.

Apollo, Dionysus, and Cody Wilson (The Tattooed Poets Project)

We are a launching our eleventh annual Tattooed Poets Project with Cody Wilson, who shared these amazing tattoos:

Cody explained:

"I’m a big fan of Nietzsche’s thoughts on the role of art, especially in The Birth of Tragedy. Nietzsche argues that we need a balance of order and disorder, and that these things compliment one another. Apollo, on my right leg, represents this as a patron of art: he was a symbol of reason and pragmatism for the Greeks. Dionysus, on my left, was also a patron of the arts, the god of wine and theater, and often represented disorder or a detachment from reason. I think in writing poetry, there’s a liminal space that we have to balance when we commit ourselves to the poem while also detaching ourselves from it in order to let it do its own thing. So often in life have I been Dionysian and craved the Apollonian, and vice versa. Having each god face each other on each leg was a sort of tribute to this. These pieces are modeled after Greek pottery from the 5th Century. Shoutout to Nigel Hirschi (@nergent) at High Noon Tattoo (@highnoontattoo) in Phoenix, who loves the weird, Greek-influenced art of Aubrey Beardsley, for tattooing these, along with at least 10 other pieces on my body. Some of my tattoos mean something. Some of them mean I just liked Nigel’s art. Order and disorder!"

Cody also sent us this tattoo-themed poem:

Admiring Japanese Flash While Getting Tattooed

A cupped hummingbird
in a palm chatters its beak
into flesh. Plasma
like nectar seeps to spittle.
Flowers get under my skin.

The sudden needles:
ADHD. My mind fires
its nociceptors
like bulbs breaking for photos.
The photographer stays hunched.

For lines, needles like
spines. For shades, needles like combs.
Needles fracking flesh.
My native skin protesting
unfair trespass of pigment.

Memento Mori:
Yorick’s grin is in my skin.
His mooned forehead wanes
behind my shirt—epitaph
engraved on my collar bone.

~ ~ ~

Cody Wilson teaches English and Creative Writing in Arizona. He has an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. His chapbook, Nobody is Ever Missing, was published by Tolsun Books. Some of his work appears at Juxtaprose, The Southampton Review, Juked, Emrys, New Ohio Review and Arc Poetry Magazine.

Thanks to Cody Wilson for sharing his tattoos and poem, helping us launch our eleventh year of the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Craig Arnold - Ἔρως and ψυχή

Today's tattoos come to us from Craig Arnold, who I found by way of J.D. McClatchy (who is un-inked, but suggested I contact Craig).

He sent these to me from Yakushima in Japan, which, according to Craig, "has lots of Princess Mononoke landscapes but very little internet/phone service".

Craig has two Greek words inscribed on his arms:


Craig explains:

"Both are Greek words: the right arm (Ἔρως) is eros, the left arm (ψυχή) is psyche. They were acquired almost exactly a year apart from each other, right arm in August 2003, left in 2004, both at Lost Art Tattoo in Salt Lake City, Utah. I believe the artist was Dean ... He designed the lettering.

In retrospect there's maybe not much of a story here, but I'll tell what there is of it.

That summer, my then-partner and I were in the early stages of splitting up, after many years together. It used to be -- maybe it still is, in some quarters -- that people got tattoos together at the start of a relationship, to express the beginning of a shared enterprise. But we were never much for going about things in the right order. So, we got tattoos together as the end approached, to remind us of our "irreconcilable differences." On my right arm I got eros -- desire, especially sexual, libido, profane love, but also creation; I think of Whitman's 'urge and urge and urge, / Always the procreant urge of the world.' And on her left, she has agape -- I suppose you could call it divine love, Christian or selfless love, unconditional love,

After a while, though, Eros got lonely and acquired a Psyche. In Greek, psyche can mean many things -- breath or life, spirit, soul, mind and self (thus, psychology). In some parts of Greece it's still used to mean butterfly. But Psyche is also the human girl who falls in love with the god Eros, in the fairy-tale that Apuleius tells in The Golden Ass, one of the earliest versions of Beauty & the Beast. The story is about what comes between them and how they finally succeed in getting back together; I think of it as one of the foundational myths, an allegory for the ways in which Desire and Will depend on and fulfill each other."

Thanks to Craig for sharing his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday. To read one of Craig's poems, please hop on over to BillyBlog here.