Two Tattoos (and a Poem) from Kat Finch (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Our next tattooed poet is Kat Finch, who shared two pieces with us. First is her tattoo on the front of her arm:

Kat tells us:

"I got my west coast kaleidoscope from Tara Johnston (@taraosprey) at Osprey Tattoo (@ospreytattoo)  at AWP in 2014 while I was back home visiting Seattle. I got it with the poet Jess Poli, almost on a whim. I literally didn't see the tattoo until the morning of, and while the design wasn't able to fit in my original spot (on my elbow) I loved it too much to compromise. Getting into grad school was the first time I'd lived outside of Washington state for longer than six months, so I needed something from home to always carry with me. I don't know what it is, but the mountains and pine and fir have always just been a comfort-- all that green, all that protection. I get to carry home with me, no matter where I go. And when people ask me about it, I can name all the mountains in the region, until I run out of mountains or memory."

Then, there's this cool tattoo, too:

She notes that

"My little tiger family was illustrated by Jen Collins, and when I got her permission I took the design over to Spiral Tattoo in Ann Arbor. I just needed a tattoo, and a change, and something happy. I was in the process of losing a close friend, and I was letting this break up of sorts destroy me. Sometimes I tell people that two of the tigers are my closest friends, and that I'm the little one. Sometimes I say a lot of things. I just really love them. This tattoo really was more of a whim, as soon as I got permission from the artist, I was in the parlor!"

Kat included the following poem for her post:

+ in Dream

+ in dream          + in dream we wind-

swept as always in + in dream the missing     was

     not absent          not stone walking     amidst ourselves

ourselves + one     another the howling silent

makes us kindred          spirits nothing makes us

     kindred spirits     spirits kindred + dreams walking out

nothing makes the golem         + in dream my dream          missing

became to mean          to go to     go + release     wrong

     in a changed manner          become regret + in dream

regret begets the changeling          the fortification of

wind to scream          phantom the golem the fact     in io-

     dine     remember the     night     + dark the

mare the walking the dream          walking dream is paramount is king

is the thaw come kith + kith          + night + kin-

     dred spirits     the mud is sewn          a being without

fact     a being a fact the apart          the limb the mouth of + wind

without     the limb to you     + you are not listening with

     out + you will always     will be phantom will always scream

will always will     + in dream you          have not been known

to go missing to go     but not known          not known your limb is

     to have been killed or killed          or captured     legacy +

in dream     not present     after a battle     this mouth a

shapeless form          from shape the mud the limb     it

     to it i it we     it the it of it     the golem the wind the limb

of it become of it       a battle spirit spirit + you the walk

the dream say     mare say night say mare-night saw it

     it waits waited          out of me + we +     one

another golem limb          not the thing to phantom you     are

you + you are you     are always are always out of          limbed

     + in dream + in waking          walking the silence

cannot reach     reach out to out          + in dream the phantom a being

without reach without          absence without     king + kith

     absence          alack     erode to get          to get to get what one

wants          + in dream + in dream     to kin meant to legacy

the lost to     reach + in spirit on the miss + in dream a lost

     is spirit to limb to phantom     absence     miss the lack          to kin

the lack          lacking to lack + mud to dream + you     a mud is

we     we must we must concur we     must scream lost + miss

     + in + wake

~ ~ ~

Kat Finch is a letterpress printer living and working in Ann Arbor. Currently she works as the education coordinator at SCRAP Box, a creative reuse center. Her work is forthcoming in The Southern Indiana Review, and may also be found in The Black Warrior Review, Bone Bouquet, Hobart, The Journal, and elsewhere. She has a little orange cat and a little orange bike, even though orange is not her favorite color. You can follow her art/poetry/cat on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/thekatticus/ and look for updates on her here: https://finchkat.wordpress.com/ also, Tumblr: http://decemberfinch.tumblr.com/ 

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

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.

Jeevika Verma - dark, darker (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Our next tattooed poet is Jeevika Verma (@_jeevika), who generously shared several tattoos with us. 

Photo via Instagram

 Jeevika tells us:

"I wrote a poem titled 'dark, darker' in Rome. It was the summer of 2016, and I was part of an intensive one-month creative writing program organized by the University of Washington. I’d spent the month thinking deeply about what it meant to delve deeper into the unknown, and how the truth often exists in what cannot be seen. Plus, I was one of the only POC in my program, and I was constantly aware of how my brownness played into my relationship with my classmates, and my relationship with Europe. I got this tattoo to commemorate my last day in Rome."

She also shared this shot from Instagram above her knee, "alluding to the bray of Sylvia Plath’s heart 'I am, I am, I am' ”:

Photo via Instagram

Jeevika also sent us this photo of her arm, which has several tattoos:

Jeevika elaborates about the four tattoos seen on her left arm above:

" 'this,' is the first tattoo I got. I got it at a shop in Mumbai when I was 18, and just about to start college. I designed it to make it look like it’s part of a larger sentence, like there’s something more to be said before and after the word. 'this,' reminds me to stay in the present. Plus, I love playing with the word 'this'. When people ask me what my favorite tattoo is, I point to it, and say 'this.'

Surrounded by 'this,' are all the the things that help me remember who I am. A full moon rules my zodiac sign, in Cancer. A prickly pear is my soul-plant. Two hands open like wings, together, but each a separate entity."

She credited Randi Ftizpatrick (@probmchild) at Osprey Tattoo (@ospreytattoo) in Seattle with the hands, MKNZ (@ruffenough) from Valentine's Tattoo (@valentinestattoo) in Seattle with the cactus, and Gia (@giactattoo) at Fatty's Tattoos (@fattystattoosandpiercings) in Washington, DC, with the moon tattoo.

Jeevika shared the following poem, "dark, darker," alluded to in the first tattoo above. It was first published in Cleaver Magazine on March 22, 2017:

dark, darker

when I frown

into this mirror

a depth takes

my forehead

inside there is a little white man

sitting straight

working hard

flipping through

pages used unused

these are records

of me fighting gravity

like that one time

I did not kneel before

him

should I find a floor that will not reflect

how my teeth have shattered against it for centuries

like that one time

should I lay a drape over my upright head

the white in my eye has grown very yellow anyway

but the shadow of the obelisk is bent this way

I could grab that neck

twist it so

all the white drips

out

folds

into my lap

and collects

like the sweat

on my bare brown back

away from the mirror

there is no white here

I know

~ ~ ~

Jeevika says we "can also find poet Nikesh Murali's beautiful reading of [the] poem here."

Jeevika Verma is a poet from India with a passion for radical honesty. She graduated from the University of Washington in December 2016 with a B.A. in Creative Writing. Before college, she lived in Cameroon (Yaoundé), which is where she founded her own creative-literary journal Creative Chaos. Her work has been featured in NPR, Kajal Magazine, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Cleaver Magazine, Susie Magazine, and more. She also curated and edited the “Loving” Anthology, as well as five short zines, titled Turns, Cuts, Grate, Long Distance Newsletters, and Scale(s). Find Jeevika’s complete portfolio at jeevikav.com.

Thanks to Jeevika Verma for her contribution to the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

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.