Readers may be wondering, where do we find all these tattooed poets? Every year I email people in the poetry community, not knowing whether they are tattooed or not. Often, they are not, but they occasionally refer me to other talented tattooed individuals who are.
Such was the case with Jenny Boychuk, our next tattooed poet, who reached out to me after I had asked
Tarfia Faizullah if she was interested.
Jenny was kind enough to send us the following tattoo:
Jenny told us about this piece:
"I got this tattoo at Urge Studios in Victoria, British Columbia. I was a
year out of college, working at a coffee shop, and had just found out
that I hadn't been admitted to any of the MFA writing programs I'd
applied to. I was preparing to move back to rural British Columbia,
where I grew up, to live with my parents for a year so that I could
focus on writing and apply to MFA programs for the second (and last)
time. Everything felt uncertain. My roommate (a close friend who is also
a writer) had just been admitted to an MFA program at Cornell
University, so she was getting ready to move to Ithaca, NY. We were both
a little heartbroken to be leaving our cozy apartment and life in
downtown Victoria, where we spent our weekends browsing used bookstores
and eating takeout on our silver, over-sized couch while we talked about
books and writing. For the first time in my life, I didn't know what I
was going to do next. I didn't know what I was going to do if I didn't
get into any MFA programs. I was in love with poetry and I was obsessed
with time. It didn't seem like there was going to be enough of it.
Falling in love with poetry made me feel like I wasn't going to have the
chance to do everything I wanted to do. To write everything I wanted to
write. I felt rushed. Everything felt like a race. So I got this tattoo
to remind myself that time is a social construct. To remind myself that
it can be broken. To remind myself to be present. To remind myself that
it all takes as long as it takes."
Jenny also shared a poem with us. An earlier version of it was previously published in
Salt Hill:
ANTONYMS
FOR TIME
i.
The blue
whale sinks
beneath
every layer of earth,
silt,
& clay. Dead miles ago,
she
decomposes as she descends.
Eventually,
she’ll fall into a bed
of sand
& weed, where bottom-
feeders
will swallow her
tongue,
abolish her history.
ii.
Memory:
eight years old
&
conjuring death. Curtain
of darkness, purest black ocean:
sweep across my mirror. Thread
this needle. A question, pulled
from my
mouth & shrouded
by ghostly
hands: Does a person
live to be 100?
iii.
In a cedar
cottage on a lake
I wished I
could open myself for,
I held his
pulse against the roof
of my
mouth with my tongue.
I thought
he’d go on forever
or just
stop. I couldn’t tell
if it was
dark outside—
iv.
A star
dies just before I fall
into
sleep. I hope to God
somewhere,
someone watched
that light
erupt from its cloaked sky
&
pushed a single bead
across an
abacus.
v.
In a
drawer there’s a photo
of my
mother looking
exactly
like me. In a drawer
there’s
one of me looking
older than
I can imagine.
vi.
The ocean
falls still. The word
origin rolls off your tongue
&
slips through the meniscus
which does
not ripple.
vii.
In the
kitchen, the ghost
of my
grandmother
is baking
bread. Guilt swells
against
her teeth like a bit
tongue.
She hears the thunder
doubled-over
with hunger,
but no
matter how much
yeast she
folds in, the dough
won’t
rise—
viii.
Somewhere
there’s
a galaxy
with an Earth
where the
oceans
release
themselves
from the
grip of their moon
& like
this
the blue
whales fall
then rise,
& rise, & rise.
~ ~ ~
Thanks to Jenny for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!
And thanks to all you other poets out there who have sent talented writers like Jenny our way!
This entry is ©2017 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.
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