Vincent Cellucci on the Tattooed Poets Project

Our next tattooed poet is Vincent Cellucci, who shared the following photo featuring several tattoos:

Vincent describes how these tattoos came to be:

"This chest piece began with the script 'P' over my heart, a memorial for my mother, Philomena, who died when I was young, so I knew I would never regret the tattoo. I got it when I was 17 on my first trip to New Orleans from a pretty sketchy parlor that used to be located across from Le Bon Temps Roule Bar, after drinking and dancing to Kermit Ruffins all night. My friend and fiction writer, Peyton Burgess got one with me; in fact, it was the first time we met.

The tattoo continued with the two signatures, one of my maternal grandmother, Jowena, and one of my paternal one, endeared Nemom. Both matrons of my family passed rather close together during the early rebuilding days of Katrina, while I was managing Theo's Pizza (one of the first places open after the storm) and pursuing my graduate school studies in poetry at LSU.

Nemom was an avid letter writer, world traveler, autodidact, polyglot, opera aficionado, and wise, little Italian grandmother—most of which she redefined herself as after raising a large family and being widowed. For a girl that worked at a sewing factory in the Bronx and never finished high school, she developed into a real Renaissance woman. She reminds me to never stop learning and pursuing new passions.

Nana Jowena corresponded with me frequently, but her profundity leans more towards vitality than letters. She embodied both strength and joy to me. This woman had a lonely and tragic life: losing two daughters, caring for her ill mother, and dealing with a bitter divorce to allude to just a few of the adversities she overcame. I never once heard the woman complain. Quite the opposite, she was the warmest, funniest entity you would ever meet. She was always strong. She never wallowed. In fact, she laughed constantly, never preventing herself form 'busting out.' She cooked daily too (with no money for groceries) and shared her food and joy with anyone that she interacted with, while confined to her small house in Philly: the mail people, the neighbors, the nuns that brought her communion. I strive to always maintain her disposition, the greatest of her many life lessons.

The large inked figure was done at Electric Ladyland (@electricladylandtattoo) on Frenchman St. I remember going with poet Christopher Shipman [appearing later this month on the Tattooed Poets Project!] as he was getting a memorial tattoo for his grandfather. Based off a detail of an oil painting of mine [see below], this mysterious gesture both resembles a bird and an angel. 

The lore of the Cellucci family name is that it means 'little bird.' I also know these women are my guardian angels and I would not be, nor be the person that I am, without them. I had the idea that it would tie the family memorial chest piece together and the artist watered down the ink to try to get that faded, dry brush-like effect. He was a cool guy and up for the challenge to try adapting the painting to skin. Poetry is such a glorious space for ambiguity, multiple meanings, and imagination, so I wanted a gestural, figurative tattoo too.

This family memorial tattoo will never be finished as I'm sure it will only grow, unfortunately.

Everyone should get the tattoos they want, but I get the tattoos I have to—"

Vincent also sent us the following poem, from his newly-released Absence Like Sun, re-published with permission from Unlikely Stories and Lavender Ink:

send someone close   second to none

right back to the mugging hum drum

of living life silent as an order for one

instead of a loud hand molding fantasies

into being maybe that was god’s error

the audience of his mission

couldn’t forgive him for setting the garden

with a naked awakening

craving for like company

children now too doped up to redeem

humanity may be the most fragile medium

this planet sympathy symphony

in a minor key that the poets sing

been battling the abyss since the beginning

been tattling on our brethren for a pittance

I can’t scrape my soul off the bleached coral

I can’t escape the mortal

mortar I’m afraid binds nothing

oversaturate the roots and see what grows

compost the roses like brown banana peels

I meant it when I ripped open my shirt

you watched the fault line form

down the middle of my crypt heart

inked with the tears I held in

over the plucked feathers of my family

I still talk to every day

yesterday my father promised me

he would be there to talk until his death

and while I plan to take him up

on such a gracious guarantee

I reminded him that even when he’s dead

I will be speaking to him

I’m not sure how he took that

because that’s when we both hung up

but that’s how I live fully in this world

and fully in the next

until the whole fucking geode crumbles

to gleaming debris

and my graveyard gets folded

into a greater graveyard lapping behind

~ ~ ~

Vincent Cellucci wrote Absence Like Sun (Lavender Ink, 2019) and An Easy Place / To Die (CityLit Press, 2011). He edited Fuck Poems an exceptional anthology (Lavender Ink, 2012). He also has two collaborative titles: come back river (Finishing Line Press) and _a ship on the line (Unlikely Books), which was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Vincent performed Diamonds in Dystopia, an interactive poetry web app at SXSW in 2017, and the poem was anthologized in Best American Experimental Writing 2018.

Thanks to Vincent for sharing his poem and tattoos with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2019 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.

Kiki Petrosino and A Signature from the Past (The Tattooed Poets Project)

One thing I love about the Tattooed Poets Project is that, every year, there are a few poets who have tattoos that blow me away with the powerful inspiration behind their work.

Our next poet is Kiki Petrosino, who has some profound work on her forearm;

Here's a closer look:

I'll let Kiki elaborate:

"My ancestor, Ezekiel Beverly, lived in Fairfax County, Virginia in the aftermath of the Civil War. He was part of that special & profound generation of African Americans who were born enslaved, survived the War, & went on to live the rest of their lives in freedom. In 1907, at the age of around 70, Ezekiel signed a legal paper with this rudimentary signature. It is the earliest example of writing on the African American side of my family. According to federal census records, Ezekiel was a farmer who did not know how to read or write. This would have been a typical circumstance for men of his generation (and earlier), as black literacy was forbidden by the Virginia Slave Codes. Ezekiel wasn't supposed to know how to sign his name, but, late in life, he learned anyway. I found the signature last year in some genealogical records. I'm currently working on a new book of poems in contemplation of Virginia and its complex racial legacies. I decided to have the signature tattooed on my left arm so that I could spend the rest of my life studying it.

The signature was tattooed by Mike Kohler (@mike_kohler) at Read Street Tattoo Parlour in Baltimore, MD. A few months later, I asked Karl Otto (instagram: @unflappablekarl) of Five Star Tattoo (@fivestartattoo) in Louisville, KY to frame the signature with a flowering dogwood branch to represent the state flower of Virginia. Karl did all of the shading for the dogwood design with individual dotwork.

We're honored to have Kiki share such an important tattoo with us, and she also shared the following poem, which was previously published in The Nation, November 2, 2017:

A Guide to the Louisa County Free Negro & Slave Records, 1770–1865

The first box is for all the good white men. The ones who freed their slaves on Christmas. It’s always Christmas in the first box. The day Delpha shall go out. The day Viney shall go out. These good white men only desire the guardian care of those under age. After that, they shall go out, just as Winney shall go out at the age of twenty-one entirely free from me or mine or any other person whatsoever. Delpha, Viney, & Winney shall go out on Christmas Day. The first box slides open to show their certificates. The good white men of this county believing that all men are by nature equally free have left many of these. One certificate is for Viney. One for Winney. One for Delpha. But these good white men can only free the slaves they truly own. One man observes the above mentioned negroes are disputed in their titles to me, namely Delpha, Viney, & Winney. He doesn’t say more about the dispute. He doesn’t say what happens on Christmas Day. This good white man has said all three should go out precisely on Christmas Day, but now it is different. It is very different now, even though Christmas has come. The good white man writes I only free as to my right & title given under my hand. The box slides open to show certificate after certificate. It’s Christmas. It’s only the first box.

~ ~ ~

Kiki Petrosino is the author of three books of poetry: Witch Wife (2017), Hymn for the Black Terrific (2013) and Fort Red Border (2009), all from Sarabande Books. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, The Best American Poetry, The Nation, The New York Times, FENCE, Gulf Coast, Jubilat, Tin House and on-line at Ploughshares. She is founder and co-editor of Transom, an independent on-line poetry journal. She is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Louisville, where she directs the Creative Writing Program. She also teaches part-time in the brief-residency MFA program at Spalding University. Her awards include a residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat and research fellowships from the University of Louisville's Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

A profound and hearty thank you to Kiki Petrosino for sharing her tattoo and poem 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.

Alabama Stone's Tattoos on the Tattooed Poets Project

Our next tattooed poet is Alabama Stone. Alabama introduced herself to me, identifying as "a dirty Southern girl that writes a lot about lineage and family and what it means to be born in the swampy coastal Carolinas."

She has three tattoos, "all of which," she explained, "carry a lot of meaning." She added, "Basically, I’m too sentimental for my own good; so I became a poet…with tattoos."

Let's check them out:

Alabama explained:

My first tattoo is the steam engine on my left arm. There are several reasons I got this tattoo. My dad worked on trains and in a rail yard briefly, plus I’ve always been crazy about trains.

And then there's these:

She explains:

"On my right arm is my most recent tattoo is an illustration by Garth Williams from the book, Little Fur Family by Margaret Wise Brown. My mother would read this book to me every night, and sing the little song to me in the back of the book.

Above it, is C.D. Wright’s handwriting from the last letter she wrote me. C.D. Wright has been a long time literary hero for me. I wrote her a long letter, sealed it, and made myself send it without rereading it. A month or so later, I get two postcards in the mail—handmade broadsides with a lovely letter on them. She signed the last letter as, 'Be well. Ever, C.D.' When she passed last year, I knew I wanted it with me forever."

Alabama's tattoo artist is Rene Estrada aka Chico (@tattoosbychico714) from Hillsborough Street Tattoo & Body Piercing (@2402tattoo) in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Chico coincidentally tattooed  Liz Purvis, another one of our featured poets seen here in 2016.

Alabama shared the following poem with us, as well:

Whiskey Creek

for the Farrow – George family

of Masonboro Sound.

Born in Swamp, (N.C.)

big-hipped mamas,

cast-iron cookin’ queens,

curl up on the dock.

Hair stuck wet

from the salt

of our seasweat.

Sleep in

marsh beds.

We fear the ghosts

of our histories.

Down here

on The Sound,

we paint our porches blue.

So the light sticks.

The good stays.

To scare away the dark.

To get rid of what’s

already been got.

A nest from a spider

or a spooked fog.

A smoke bright

and burnin’ mad.

Keeps em’ out—sometimes

we paint the door frames too,

‘cause mama says granma’s

mama always did,

the color haint blue.

We make our livin’ makin’

 shine or wine or

 —nunya, goddamned, fucken, business.

boozer.

bootlegger.                                                                                                      

rumrunner,

crook.

                                                                                               

We, the granny witches,                             

castin’ spells and fishin’ lines.

Carryin’ pinfish in our pockets.                            

Clammin’ with our feet.

We walk, tired.

Lift up our knees,

ankles stuck in mud,

babies hang to our hips

with their fat little fists

of hushpuppies.

Our feet and hands hurt

from workin’.

Our backs hurt

from carryin’

the family name.

~ ~ ~

Alabama Stone is not from Alabama—she is from the swampy wetlands of North Carolina. Raised on the humidity of the South, she relies on her family name for inspiration. Her poetry has appeared in
Blue Mesa Review, Crab Fat Magazine, voicemail poems, (parenthetical): words(on)pages; along with being an official poet in the “PoMoSco Project” while working with The Found Poetry Review.
She holds a MFA from North Carolina State University and is the cofounder and director of Street Smarts & The Arts, a community program bringing poetry workshops to runaway and homeless youth of North Carolina.

Thanks to Alabama for sharing her tattoos and poem with us here on The Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2017 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoos 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.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.

Laurel Cooks with a Celebrity Signature

I met Laurel last weekend while riding my bike down by the 69th Street Pier in Bay Ridge.

She has a bunch of tattoos and shared this combination on her arm:

At the bottom of the photo is a meat cleaver below what appears to be a red squiggle. Laurel is an avid baker (you can find her on Facebook under Little Laurel, Big Treats) and huge fan of the chef Anthony Bourdain.

She went to one of his book-signings and he autographed her arm, after which she headed to Hand of Glory Tattoo in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where she had the artist make the signature permanent, with a meat cleaver, to boot.

Thanks to Laurel for sharing her ink with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2014 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.

Tattoos I Know: Mary-Lee's Paternal Inscription

I'm particularly proud of this particular tattoo story because it hatched out of Tattoosday itself, in a roundabout way.

The signature above is a freshly-inked autograph of a man who has been dead over forty years. It graces the back of Mary-Lee, who I have known and worked with for a decade. The signature is that of her father.

Earlier this year, Mary-Lee, who has regarded the Tattoosday hobby of mine with a curious amusement, was moved by the story of Kate's tattoos (here), especially the one of her twin sister's signature. Kate's sister had died in a car crash the previous year, and the name of her sister, in her own handwriting, is a touching and beautiful memorial.

Upon hearing this tale, and seeing this tattoo, Mary-Lee began thinking of a similar tribute, made all the more remarkable by the way the stars lined up to make this happen.

Her father died at the age of 53, when Mary-Lee was only eleven years old. She was a typical Daddy's Girl, and has never forgotten the sudden nature of his passing, and the absence of closure, as she was not allowed to go to his funeral.

So, as the anniversary of his death approached on December 4, and she realized that this anniversary was special in that she is the same age as he was that he died, she decided it was only fitting to get her first tattoo, honoring her dad, at the same age as he was on the day he died.

The final question was, would she be able to get it inked after 6pm on the anniversary? She doesn't know the exact time he left this world, only that it was after 6pm.

She started looking for a reputable shop in the area, and stumbled upon Red Rocket Tattoo, located between work and her home in Manhattan. She booked an appointment after 6pm on December 4 with Betty Rose well in advance. As if the kismet of the dates lining up wasn't enough, Red Rocket is where our friend and co-worker Paul (see his ink here) had his work done, and Betty Rose was the girlfriend of Chris (see his ink here) with whom I served a brief stint of jury duty over the summer.


When December 4 rolled around, everything went smoothly. Betty Rose had lifted the signature from the old ssocial security card that Mary-Lee still had in her possession, enlarged it, and placed the stencil in the perfect spot on the first attempt.

She is very pleased with how the nuances of the signature were picked up in the process, and loves how the inked reproduction is tilted "upwards, toward heaven".

And, whether it is the physical fineness of the lines and minimal surface area the tattoo affects, or whether there is a paternal heavenly influence with its hand in the process, Mary-Lee has marveled that she has experienced none of the typical symptoms that come with a healing tattoo.

This lack of self-consciousness about the ink, combined with the minimal pain and aftercare required, has validated for her the transcendent healing nature of her tattoo.

And it has helped her obtain another level of closure that she never received when she lost her father at the age of eleven.

Thanks to Mary-lee for sharing her tattoo and its story here with us on Tattoosday!

Ellen Lives on in Kate's Ink

Last week I saw this tattoo walking down 7th Avenue. I handed a flier to Kate, to whom this tattoo belongs. She e-mailed me later that day to say she liked the blog and expressed a willingness to share her tattoos here. We met the next day to talk about her ink.

Her first and second tattoos were actually inked on the same day last June. First was this piece on her left wrist:


"So," I asked Kate, "who's Ellen?"

"That's my sister Ellen's actual signature," Kate replied, "I got this a couple of days before her funeral."

Hold on a second.

"What?" I was shocked.

And then she told me what happened.

A year ago today (June 16, 2007), Ellen Aquino died tragically in North Carolina, from injuries sustained in a car accident. She was killed by another motorist who fell asleep at the wheel, crossed the center divider, and hit her head-on.

Two days before the funeral, Kate and two other friends went into Physical Graffiti Tattoo Studio in Rochester, New York, and each had the tattoo inked. Kate got it on her left wrist, one of her friends got it on the ankle, and the other got it on her foot.

The piece replicated Ellen's signature, along with a heart, and is a poignant memorial to Kate's sister.

But she did not stop there. At the same time that the signature was inked, Kate had four lines from "First Day of My Life" by Bright Eyes inscribed above her outer right ankle:


I've embedded the video here so one can hear the song:



"It's typically a love song," Kate says, but the lyrics are particularly resonant:

Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you...

as Ellen's face would have been the first one she saw in this world. Because, Kate explained, Ellen was her identical twin, born ten minutes before her.

If I was stunned when this young woman of twenty-six told me she had just buried her sister last year, I was even more shocked when she told me it was her twin. I can barely imagine the grief of losing a sibling, but an identical twin? It was unfathomable to me.

Yet here was a vibrant young woman, talking to me in Greeley Square, showing me these tattoos based in tragedy, yet I could sense the strength that they gave her.

Her third tattoo was the heart with wings (pictured at the top of the post). It was tattooed at Extreme Graphix Tattoo Ink in Rochester. People always told her that Ellen was her guardian angel, and this piece represents the manifestation of that ongoing relationship.

Kate had shown me three tattoos, but she had told me she had four. I was thinking it might be one that I couldn't photograph, as I didn't see any other visible ink. Then, another Tattoosday first, she unveiled her fourth tattoo:

I was certainly not expecting an inner-lip tattoo. Kate joked, "Yeah, it's pretty hard-core". Wow. "Did it hurt?" I asked. She shook her head, "Not at all". So what's the deal with the word "LIVE" tattooed inside her lower lip?

As if she hadn't made me think enough, she continued to give me chills. "I got this on my last birthday," and I knew immediately why it was significant. Kate and Ellen had celebrated twenty-five consecutive birthdays together. And this one was the first that she would spend without her twin, for the rest of her life. Again, I cannot begin to imagine the emotions she was experiencing on what is supposed to be a happy day.

This was done at Love Hate Tattoo, also in Rochester. "It's a reminder to myself that I'm still here," Kate explained.

Via a series of e-mails I gleaned some additional details.

First, Kate offered up a link to Ellen's online obituary here. I also came across this tribute at a camp for handicapped children where Ellen worked for many summers. Her short life showed an amazing commitment to kids with special needs and a selfless commitment to helping educate others.

I was curious to know what Kate's parents thought of her tattoos and she replied:

My parents like my tattoos, they think they're nice, but would never want any for themselves. The only thing they told me in the beginning, in the midst of their grief was "don't get anything on your face." My grandmother however (she's in her 70's) *loves* my tattoos, and cried the first time she read the one on my ankle. I actually took her to get her own memorial tattoo (her first & probably last tattoo) in October, and she's quite proud of it.

I must say that Kate was amazingly resilient a few days shy of such a tragic anniversary. I cannot even begin to imagine the difficulty she and her family have undergone over the past year.

I thank Kate for sharing her and Ellen's story here. Tattoos are transforming, therapeutic emblems that not only help one heal, but also help one live beyond the healing.

I hope that Kate continues to find strength in her ink, and I look forward to her checking back in with us here at Tattoosday. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family. Please know that it is and will continue to be an honor to host Kate's tattoos (end Ellen's memory) here.