The Tattooed Poets Project: Sean M. Damlos-Mitchell

I met Sean Damlos-Mitchell last summer at the NYC Poetry Festival on Governor's Island.

I snapped this photo of his arm:

The phrase So it goes [from Slaughterhouse-Five] is circled by Memento Mori.

In a nutshell, Sean wrote to me explaining the tattoo:

"Love & death. As though there is anything else. Memento Mori - being reminded of one's mortality. Vonnegut. The lower piece is by José Guadalupe Posada - The Revolutionary Goes to War. Love & belief; putting up a fight; trying still."

The top part of the tattoo was done by Brian at Enchanted Dragon Tattoos in Tucson, Arizona. the Posada piece was done by Terry Tapp, formerly of Crazy Monkey Tattoo in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Sean sent me the following poem:


            STRANGE FEELS

consider a creative process of dealing
with grief, just one creative way

to deal with grief is to throw it under a bridge

another is by righteously hyperextending
an arm, allowing its fingerprints to process

in the end nothing is so effective as giving up

convictions in exchange for virginity – exactly
how I became enlightened re: my limitations

a necessary step in overcoming ways I felt; I feel

there were people then who were ghostly everywhere
even the secret places I'd go to trench my frailties

~ ~ ~

Sean M. Damlos-Mitchell holds an MFA from The New School & is a rather friendly and endearing fellow, possessing smooth skin & a knowing glance. He has previously published poems in Whole Beast Rag, Poem Tiger, The Mackinac, & Hot Street. Additionally, he is the author of SINCERELY SPACEMAN, a chapbook by The New Megaphone.

Thanks to Sean for his contribution to the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2014 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.

Re-Post: Happy Birthday, Mr. Vonnegut!

Happy Birthday, Mr. Vonnegut! 

Social media reminds me that today would be Kurt Vonnegut's 90th birthday. 

It's also Veteran's Day and, since Vonnegut wrote one of the great war novels of all time, Slaughterhouse Five, it seemed appropriate to re-post this classic Vonnegut tattoo. You can see all of the Vonnegut tattoos that have appeared on Tattoosday here. 

Enjoy this Tattoosday classic:


At the Seventh Avenue Street Fair in Park Slope on Sunday, there was plenty of ink. Amazing ink too. But I only stopped one person, Samantha.

Samantha had this simple quote from the late Kurt Vonnegut on her back. This simple refrain (used 106 times in Slaughterhouse-Five, according to Wikipedia), came to be synonymous with the Vonnegut philosophy.

Samantha had this inked on her birthday at Hypnotic Designs in Sunset Park by Dru. Her boyfriend Igor also had a Vonnegut quote inked, but on his left leg:


or, from a different view:


This quote is from God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian...

My epitaph in any case? "Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt." I will have gotten off so light, whatever the heck it is that was going on.

Thanks to Samantha and Igor for sharing their Vonnegutian ink here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2008, 2012 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.

Marisa Shares Some Vonnegut

I love a good literary tattoo, especially when I recognize the text and the author.

I met Marisa after I spotted these six familiar words below her neck:

 The quote "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt" refers to an epitaph inscribed on a tombstone in Vonnegut's classic novel, Slaughterhouse-Five.

This is Marisa's one and only tattoo and she explained why she chose this particular quote:

"I was going through a hard time and it helped me out a lot - it's just one of those quotes, so meaningful ... that I just needed to have it on me."

Marisa and I share a mutual appreciation of Vonnegut's work and, despite the greatness of Slaughterhouse-Five, we both liked Cat's Cradle better.

The words were inked at High Roller Tattoo in Hicksville, New York.

Thanks to Marisa for sharing this classic literary tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

And remember, you can see more literary tattoos at Contrariwise and The Word Made Flesh.

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.

Tattoorism 101: Alli's Ink

Here's another installment of Tattoorism. Alli sent me these photos at the beginning of October, so I appreciate her patience while I've taken the time to post these. I'll let Alli speak for herself:

Hey there,

I'm an avid Tattoosday reader. I, like many others, enjoy the stories that connect us all through one mutual love: tattoos.

I have three tattoos, my first inking done at 16 in Durham, North Carolina. I don't exactly remember the name of the shop, it was really underground and kind of shady. It's the old flag saying "don't tread on me," inspired by a respect for my veteran father and love for American war history. It's on my left foot:


My second tattoo was done at Glenn's Tattoo Service Inc. in Carrboro, North Carolina by the artist Paulie Andrew. A few weeks after my 18th birthday, I went in with a friend and saw this design on the wall. I immediately asked about it, and he told me everyone always compliments it, but no one had gotten it tattooed yet. I sat on it, went back the next day, and got it tattooed on my upper back in dedication of the bond shared between my father, my sister Carly, and myself:


Through our lives, the changes in characters have been so many, but we always stuck together. Elephants are a sign of good luck, too, which is always a plus. :)


[That's the tattoo at the top of the post, as well.]

My last tattoo was inked in Athens, Ohio. Can't remember the name of the parlor right now, but it was my second day of college. Inspired by the possibility of my dreams of becoming a writer coming true, the start of real life, I got one of my favorite quotes tattooed on my right underarm:


"So it goes" is from the works [first introduced in Slaughterhouse-Five] of Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite authors of all time. Reading Vonnegut is one of the reasons I came to this school to pursue writing as a career, and it's also how I like to handle what life throws at me. This tattoo was also prompted by the New Buffalo song "Cheer Me Up Thank You," which I think is absolutely amazing. [Here's the video:]




Sorry about the poor focus of the pictures. If it makes the cut for the site, feel free to crop. My camera is under repair right now, so it was just randoms I found!

Thanks so much.

Alli

Thanks, Alli, for sharing your ink here with us at Tattoosday! And thank you for waiting so patiently for me to process your post!

Tattoorism 101: Emmie's Vonnegut Tattoo

This is the first installment of what I call Tattoorism 101.

Hello Bill, I wanted to start off by saying I love your blog. I really enjoy reading all the stories behind all the interesting tattoos you post. I'm sure you're swamped with submissions, but I wanted to add mine to your collection.

The quote "Everything is beautiful and nothing hurt" is from Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five". It's my first tattoo, and it was done by Black Diamond Tattoo Studio in Abington, MA. I knew I wanted to get one for a while, and I knew I wanted it to be a quote of some sort, but nothing really struck me until I saw this. In the book, the quote is actually on a tombstone.
I think it struck me to think that if you can go through your entire life and put that on your tombstone, you must have lived a pretty good one. I know that it isn't entirely realistic, but I think of the quote as an ideal, and something to live up to. I wound up choosing the heart design just because I liked it and I didn't fancy putting a tombstone on my back.

Well, I hope that you are able to post this on your blog. Thanks for running such an awesome site!

Cheers, Emmie

This is actually a pretty popular tattoo quote and has appeared, in a different form, on Tattoosday here. I do like how Emmie shaped it into a heart. I think Kurt Vonnegut would have liked that too.

Thanks to Emmie for sharing this piece with us, and for all of you who have sent me photos previously. I will get to your submissions in the days and weeks to come.

Kurt Vonnegut Remembered. So it goes.

At the Seventh Avenue Street Fair in Park Slope on Sunday, there was plenty of ink. Amazing ink too. But I only stopped one person, Samantha.

Samantha had this simple quote from the late Kurt Vonnegut on her back. This simple refrain (used 106 times in Slaughterhouse-Five, according to Wikipedia), came to be synonymous with the Vonnegut philosophy.

Samantha had this inked on her birthday at Hypnotic Designs in Sunset Park by Dru. Her boyfriend Igor also had a Vonnegut quote inked, but on his left leg:


or, from a different view:


This quote is from God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian...

My epitaph in any case? "Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt." I will have gotten off so light, whatever the heck it is that was going on.

Thanks to Samantha and Igor for sharing their Vonnegutian ink here on Tattoosday!