Kathleen Peirce on the Tattooed Poets Project

Our next tattooed poet is Kathleen Peirce, who sent us the following photo of her ink:

Kathleen tells us:

"This tattoo is the tail end of the sleeve on my left arm. It was done by Katja Ramirez (@katjaramirez), at Rock of Ages Tattoo (@rockofagestattoo) in Austin, Texas. The phoenix feathers are in the Japanese tradition, signaling rebirth, and the yellow flowers are Mexican marigolds, which light the way for the dead in Mexican tradition." 

The following poem, "Handihorse," is an unpublished work from the manuscript for Kathleen's 6th book, Lion's Paw.

Handihorse

Dollar for dollar, what did that
ever mean? A man wrote I grew up
dirt poor and hunted/fished for food. Don’t kill
anything you’re not going to eat. I do not have it in me
to kill anything anymore. Maybe a fish now and then.
She would put, my beautiful best friend, her thumb and first finger down
on my desk at school, fourth grade, then add her pinky and her ring, bobbing
her middle finger above the earth, making of her hand
a little animal to amble over,
whose lowered head would touch my hand
while she made the sniffing sound. I’d make one of myself
and go to her. Never did we think to make
four animals at once. Now I see Handihorse for sale, four toy hooves
for fingertips and a finger pony head, to make the same thing true
but without beauty. My friend
and her tumor are together forever now. When I go past
my big fish tank, I see and feel the Betta wait. I put my finger in
and he arrives again. Neither of us
is what we are. Something wavers toward and we touch.

~ ~ ~

Kathleen Peirce is the author of five collections of poems, most recently Vault, from New Michigan Press. Her work has been awarded The AWP Award, The Iowa Prize, and The William Carlos Williams Award, and was a finalist for The LA Times Book Award. Her work has been supported by the National Foundation for the Arts, The Giles Whiting Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. She teaches poetry in MFA program at Texas State University.

Thanks to Kathleen 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.

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Tattoos from the Blogosphere: The Back of Nathan's Legs

My recent affiliation with Nathan over at KnuckleTattoos.com has been fairly sparse with the cold weather seizing the Northeast. However once he added me as a contributing writer, I queried about him sending me photos of some of his ink to put up over here on Tattoosday. This post reflects a couple of leg pieces he sports.

First a pre-color peek:

And then, with some color, in its completed form:


A little limb isolation (click to enlarge):



These pieces were inked by Jason Brooks ("he is incredible") at Rock of Ages Tattooing in Austin, Texas.

The following is an excerpt from Nathan's blog, which begins to explain "bitter strength" and "Quixotic honor":

So I went under the gun again. First time in almost six years. I was just supposed to get the outlines done, but then his appointment after me canceled and I got a four hour session. The crook behind the knee and the area around the Achilles tendon were miserably painful, but the rest was pretty tolerable.



The theme behind the piece is a warning about virtues bordering on being vices. Values that can bite you back. Just because I am strong enough to endure hardship does not make it any less hard. Sometimes not bearing the load is better than having the strength. Honor is good up to the point that it becomes pride or self delusion. Of course it also works backwards. I am strong enough to persevere. Sometimes the windmills are dragons in disguise.

Thanks to Nathan for sharing his ink here on Tattoosday. Be sure to check out his ink blog here. Who knows, may be you'll see a post by yours truly over there one of these days...