The Tattooed Poets Project: Guillermo Filice Castro

In our weekly post-April Tattooed Poet o' the Week continuation of the Tattooed Poets Project, our next contributor is Guillermo Filice Castro:

Photo by Mark Papellero

Guillermo told us:

"I met the tattoo artist Nikki Lugo (currently at Tattoo Paradise in Washington DC) about ten years ago through my partner back when they were roommates. I had wanted a tattoo for a long time ––notion reinforced by having a new boyfriend with lots of ink–– but had been dillydallying, unsure of what to get and, mostly, afraid of the pain. Knowing I was a writer Nikki suggested one day, 'You should get a quill!' It was the perfect idea. With my birthday coming up, she offered to do it herself as a present to me. How could I refuse that? And when the time came, whatever trepidation I may have had vanished as soon as Nikki’s needle touched my skin, yielding a wonderful design at the cost of no pain."

Guillermo shared the following poem, which appeared in the April issue of The Brooklyn Rail:

Self-Portrait with Musician

Sometimes the heart strikes out noisily,

Leaps into a grand piano like a stunt man.

Green-eyed, an almost green voice:

She leaps out of a grand piano like a stunted man,

Resurfaces reptilian, shedding scales.

She’s a whisper inside a box of wails,

An amphibian on the surface, adding scales

To leave the swamp dressed for a part.

I too whisper from inside a box of veils,

Rustle up a melody that comes apart

Leaving the water in a dress from K-Mart.

She sings over sweeps of pedal steel,

Rustles up a harmony that quickly comes part

Of my flesh. More and more I would steal

From this lady singing over sweet pedal steel:

The green eyes; and the pale green noise

That sinks into flesh as much as it might heal

Whenever the heart strikes, without a voice.

                                                           

                                                                                            For Chan Marshall a.k.a. Cat Power

~ ~ ~

Guillermo Filice Castro is the recipient of an Emerge-Surface-Be fellowship. His poems appear in Assaracus, Barrow Street, The Brooklyn Rail, Court Green, The Bellevue Literary Review, Ducts, LaFovea, Quarterly West, and more; as well as the anthologies Rabbit Ears, Flicker & Spark, Divining Divas, My Diva, Saints of Hysteria, and others. His translations of Olga Orozco, in collaboration with Ron Drummond, appear in Guernica, Terra Incognita, U.S. Latino Review, and Visions. In 2012 his work was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya prize. Castro lives in New York City.

Thanks to Guillermo for his contribution to The Tattooed Poets Project!

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.

Two for Tattoosday - Dave's Scalpflower and Bethany's Lonely Whale

A couple weeks back, I met Dave and Bethany outside of the Borders Penn Plaza in Manhattan. Both had amazing ink and shared some tattoos with us. Let's start with Dave's "scalpflower":

 

Dave explained that this floral tattoo on his scalp was inked by Mike Adams, who was doing a guest spot at Thicker Than Water in Manhattan.

Dave elaborated:

"We had talked about some ideas when I saw him [Mike Adams] at the Philadelphia Convention. We showed up [at Thicker than Water] and he just showed me some of the drawings of the tattoos he had recently done.

He had done another flower on someone else in the past week and I said 'Oh, let's do one of those.' He said, 'Yeah, that's awesome/ Let's do it.' "

Dave, who is approximately 70% covered in tattoos, had mostly been worked on by Tony Hundahl from Rock of Ages Tattoo in Austin, Texas. Hundahl has done both of Dave's sleeves (including the traditional segment pictured below), his chest, stomach, back, knees and one of his legs.

Dave added that, since moving to Washington D.C. recently, he started collecting work from other artists in the East.

Along with Dave, I met Bethany who, shared one of her more recent tattoos, this whale by Deno Jr.:

Deno Jr. works out of Circus Tattoo in Madrid, Spain, but had recently done a guest spot at Tattoo Paradise in D.C.

This tattoo is of this lonely whale, whose song is different from any other species, so it is an outcast, and she doesn't have a mate.

Thanks to Dave and Bethany for sharing their amazing tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Gina Myers and Her Colorful Gypsy

Today's Tattooed Poet is Gina Myers, who offered up this beautiful traditional gypsy piece:


Gina provided me the following commentary to accompany the tattoo:

"Sharing tattoos in this public forum is a little strange for me. I used to keep my tattoos covered when visiting family or working, and have only recently felt comfortable in the office at my current job letting them show. I tell my friends when I am going to get something new done, and I show them pictures afterward. However, I rarely, if ever, talk about the reason behind the tattoos.

I get tattoos for very personal reasons and the tattoos are for me, not for others. Strangers in public will often ask me about my tattoos or even go as far as touching my arm, moving my hair, or pulling up my shirt sleeve to see my work. What shocks me is that they often do not see anything wrong with their behavior. How often do people walk up behind strangers and rub their arms or ask them intensely personal questions? Someone once actually lifted my friend's skirt to see the tattoo on her thigh that stuck out some below her hemline. It would seem to go
without saying that what is beneath her skirt is not public. A tattoo is not public.

Sometimes when people ask me what a particular tattoo means, I ask them what they think it means. Usually people are able to put together a string of adjectives to which I respond, "That sounds pretty good to me."

I got this tattoo in September 2007 by Chad Koeplinger at Tattoo Paradise in Washington, DC. Chad is from my hometown of Saginaw, Michigan, and we grew up with the same people. I find this important. I kind of believe people who have a lot of tattoos are damaged in some way, and Chad, being from Saginaw, kind of gets my damage with no explanation. In 2006, I got a piece by Chad on the outside of my right arm, a fully-rigged ship, and then this piece, a gypsy, is on the inside of the same arm. To me, the pieces are related. They both represent people. This gypsy represents a particular person but can stand in for many as I have been lucky to have been surrounded by many strong women in my life. When I ask people what they think a gypsy means, aside from the occasional "stealing babies" comment, I often get strong-willed, mischievous, and free-spirited. To which I respond: "Yes, that sounds pretty good."

Thanks to Gina for sharing one of her amazing tattoos with us here at Tattoosday!

Please head over to BillyBlog to read one of Gina's poems.