The Tattooed Poets Project: Zann Carter

Earlier this week, we featured a tattoo from Michael Lally, and he included a photo of his son's matching tattoo. Today, we have a similar mother-daughter combo.

Zann Carter is our tattooed poet today, and she sent us this photo:

Zann tells us how this moon came to be:

"My one-and-only tattoo was done at Solstice 2011, shortly after I turned 60. My daughter, Molly, visiting for our family winter celebration on Solstice Eve, suddenly suggested we both get a tattoo the next day. It was something she had mentioned some time before, as a Mother/Daughter thing. 

 'Maybe a little moon,' she had said, 'I'll get mine behind my ear, it'll be like you're whispering wisdom to me.'

What she didn't know was that I had occasionally fantasized about having a moon tattoo - a blue crescent moon, inspired by the priestess tattoos described in the book Mists of Avalon by Marian Zimmer Bradley. However, I was pretty sure I didn’t want mine in the center of my forehead!

Since the tattoos weren't large or elaborate, we were able to get an appointment the next day, with the artist of my choice, Amber McCarty [at Terre Haute Tattoo Company].   I picked her because she was the artist whose work I'd admired on the arm of a server in the deli, a gorgeous portrait tattoo.

Our day started at dawn, with my daughter and I 'rattling up the sun' in a Solstice ritual during which I had a rather startling return of a crystal point lost a few weeks before.

Then off we went to get tattooed. I remember I told my daughter it felt like many tiny bees. My daughter, who already knew the intense experience of getting a tattoo on her neck, described her behind-the-ear moon as 'a cat scratching, no, clawing...the same spot over and over and over.'

For me, my little blue moon connects me in a special way to my adult daughter, to that day, to the Solstice ritual we share, to the sweet little miracle of finding that crystal. It reminds me of my connection to the Goddess and Things of the Spirit that sustain me.  It reminds me that the extraordinary is all about, that ‘once in a blue moon’ is with me all the time."

And here is Molly's moon:

"My tattoo is her tattoo is my tattoo"

Zann also sent us her following poem:

Net 

Each day I examine what finds its way
into these waters, the shining things caught

 in my net.

I lay them out one by one, sounding
for metaphor, meaning, pretty noise.

Such riches in the ebb and flow:
here is the lovely vocabulary of astronomy.

Listen!

accretion disk, aphelion, apoapsis,
asterism, asthenosphere, azimuth, arc

and that’s only the A’s.

Here is the history of silk, the sad story
of bombyx mori,  a blind moth unable to eat or fly,
bred only to mate, lay eggs and die.

Her very best ending has her offspring boiled,
unraveled from their shrouds, piled in market baskets

and eaten,
while their perfect strands of silk are reeled, plied, woven.

The day’s big finds are stored away in my notebook.

Doomed worms and their cocoons,
a factory floating in the middle of a great lake
where lotus stems become fine threads,

and earnest girls twirling fire in poi pots on distant beaches,
their flames spinning into filaments of light

lingering on retinas.

~ ~ ~

Zann Carter is a poet and fiber artist in Terre Haute, Indiana. She co-hosts a monthly poetry reading now in its 8th year and chairs workshops on healing through expressive arts and storytelling. Her poetry has been published in  Ides of March, SageWoman, Dirty Chai, The Healing Muse, Misfitmagazine and is forthcoming in Witches & Pagans.  She has twice received Grand Prize in the Max Ehrmann Poetry Competition. Her desperately-in-need-of-updating website is at www.zanncarter.com.

Thanks to Zann for sharing her poem, as well as both her and her daughter Molly's tattoos here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2016 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Sarah Rafael Garcia

Our next tattooed poet is Sarah Rafael Garcia, who sent us the following photo:

Sarah explains where the line "I struggle with the womyn I aspire to set free..." comes from:

"The tattoo is line out of my poem 'Without A Name.' When I started the MFA program in Creative Writing (Fiction) in 2012, I knew it would most likely make me doubt myself as a writer. So I started getting tattoos of my own published work. Little did I know then, the experience would also create doubt in my personal identity as a woman writer of color. I graduated from the MFA May 2015. In a way, my tattoos served as a daily reminder of affirmation.

'Without A Name' was first published in June 2012, in Label Me Latina/o: Special Edition: Latina Authors-Asserting Female Agency. Coincidentally, the artist of my first publication tattoo—Ernesto aka Et Tat Too who is currently a freelance tattoo artist in Austin, Texas—also did this one and other writing related images on my right arm. Most recently, 'Without A Name' was accepted in the 2016 In The Words of Womyn anthology, I guess might have to add another line somewhere..."

Sarah's aforementioned poem appears below:

Without a Name

I struggle with the woman you want me to be.
I struggle with the woman who is kept beneath.
I struggle with the woman I aspire to set free.

I struggle with the terms Mother, Chicana and Feminist.
Because I’m often judged for the seeds I lack to sow rather than the ones I have
cultivated and produced. I am a woman, I am Chicana, I am a Feminist, but I’m not the
traditional mother most have expected me to be. I am human, a community educator. I do
not need a literal term to define what I contribute to our world, I just need time to nurture
its existence and teach others to do the same.

I struggle with the woman you want me to be.
I struggle with the woman who is kept beneath.
I struggle with the woman I aspire to set free.

I struggle to be loved and let my love depend on someone else. My mother and
grandmother are both widows who have paved the road for my stubborn independence.
It’s the same independence that allows me to reach for my dreams while empowering
others to do the same. Don’t let this Aztec princess mislead you, I still long to share this
love with someone who understands my vision.

I struggle with the woman you want me to be.
I struggle with the woman who is kept beneath.
I struggle with the woman I aspire to set free.

I struggle with the idea that I’m not meant to indulge in my own sexuality.
Apparently, it’s not ladylike or part of my culture. As if passion could destroy my
reputation or ancestral being. In the loudest of all life orgasms, passion in all its forms
and origins has led my life to higher ground! It is my bodily curves, cultural will and
inherited free spirit that continue to remind me of what I am and represent. I am a woman
of Mexican heritage with the freedom to demand human rights! And if I have to disrobe
my identity before you, to help you understand, then, I stand naked and without a name.
See me for what I am, not for what you think I ought to be.

I struggle with the woman you want me to be.
I struggle with the woman who is kept beneath.
I struggle with the woman I aspire to set free.

~ ~ ~

Sarah Rafael García is a writer, community educator and traveler. Since publishing Las Niñas, she founded Barrio Writers and obtained a M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Her writing has appeared in LATINO Magazine, Contrapuntos III, Outrage: A Protest Anthology For Injustice in a Post 9/11 World, La Tolteca Zine, Lumen Magazine, among others and her piece "Without A Name" is forthcoming in the 2016 In The Words of Womyn anthology.

Thanks to Sarah for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2016 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.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: Michael Lally

If you've ever wondered how I find all of these wonderful tattooed poets, I must give credit to all the awesome un-inked wordsmiths who send contributors my way.

Case in point, at last fall's launch reading of The Best American Poetry 2015, I was speaking to several poets after the event, and Terrence Winch, one of the contributors, told me I should talk to Michael Lally, who had a tattoo dating back to the 1960's.

I reached out to Michael and he was happy to participate, as evidenced below:

Okay, I know many readers may be thinking Michael's tattoo isn't going to win "best in show," but remember this month is all about tattooed poets, so let's check out Michael's poems about this tattoo:

TATTOO SONNETS

One drunken night I got a tattoo of a spade,
symbolizing my rejection of the white world.
I wanted it between my pointer and thumb but
since I was underage the tattoo guy said Not
above the neck or below the wrist. So it could
be hidden under a shirt. He put it on my right
forearm. When my brother the cop saw it he
told our folks I was in a new gang. When we
got a new sarge, young, my height and freckle
faced, a paddy cat like me but more powerfully
built, rumored to hold the Air Force boxing
title in his weight division, sitting on my foot
locker as he passed, I muttered He don’t look
so tough to me. He stopped and turned to me.

When he said Let’s see how tough you are kid
I did what I always did. Bowed my head and
charged, fists flying. Usually I pummeled a
guy’s gut while he battered the back of my
head and shoulders, rarely showing signs of a
fight no matter how badly I was beat. If he’d
been drinking he might even throw up, or quit
before he did. But he grabbed my shoulders and
kept me charging right into a wall. He said Put
up your open hands. Before I even saw his fists
move he was hammering my palms with combi-
nations. In seconds they were swollen. He threw
an arm around my neck and said I like you kid,
you got balls, don’t give me any trouble. I didn’t.

~ ~ ~

Michael said he got this spade "in a tattoo parlor in Rantoul, Illinois" when he was 18.

He also sent this photo of his son's tattoo:

Michael told me, "my youngest son talked me into letting him get the same tattoo when he was 15, saying I’m old (70 at the time) and have had some health scares so he wanted me to be there when he got it to see that he was permanently marking himself with a look-a-like tattoo as a tribute to his father."

Michael Lally's first book, What Withers, was published in 1970 and his twenty-eighth, Swing Theory, in 2015. Among his awards and honors are the 92nd St. Y Poetry Center’s “Discovery Award” for The South Orange Sonnets, two National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Awards, the 1997 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature for Can't Be Wrong, and the 

2000 American Book Award for It’s Not Nostalgia. Incidentally, one of his NEA awards, for his poem "My Life," was notoriously cited in Congress, in a 1981 right-wing attempt to eliminate the NEA, as evidence of the government rewarding “pornography.”

It's an honor to have Michael Lally among the ranks of Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project and I thank him for sharing his tattoo and poems with us here.

This entry is ©2016 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.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.

Aaron Simon on The Tattooed Poets Project

Our next tattooed poet is Aaron Simon, who sent the following photos:

Aaron explains:

"I got this tattoo in April 2015, (almost) exactly one year ago.   The banner 'Veni, Vedi, Velcro' was lifted from a poem entitled September 13th, 2001, written by one of my poetry mentors and former teachers at the New School: Paul Violi.

Besides being a tribute to the late, great Paul  Violi, the classic image of an anchor (and the 'punny' banner) carry a dual meaning.  On February 3rd, 2014, I was on my motorcycle en route to meet New York School mainstay Bill Berkson for lunch here in San Francisco, when I was struck by an SUV making an illegal U-turn.  I had some very serious injuries (two compound fractures of my tibia and fibula, and a broken shoulder). Needless to say, I almost bought the farm -- so I literally 'came, saw, and stuck around', just like Paul's lines read! Here is an article written about the accident by SF's own poetry ambassador Kevin Killian.

The tattoo was done by Courtney O'Shea of Let it Bleed Tattoo in San Francisco, CA."

Aaron shared the following poem, as well, which appeared previously in Exquisite Corpse:

PERSONS

                        for Paul Violi

Simon, he says

without blinking

direct address from the side

of his mouth

we’re going someplace

where cats aren’t allowed

to walk on the bar with impunity

the night sky is purple not black

heading south on Sixth Ave

he lights a smoke

because it’s time to

we should drive more

write less

seek commination whenever possible

I don’t have the stomach for poems

after all it’s work

that makes us human

the hostess at Del’s bar

frowns at us

Paul says, it’s OK, we’re not cops

~ ~ ~

Aaron Simon is the author of Carrier (Insurance Editions, 2006), Periodical Days (Green Zone Editions, 2007), Senses Himself (Green Zone Editions, 2014), and Rain Check Poems (BlazeVOX [books], 2015). His poems have appeared in several publications, including Like Musical Instruments: 83 Contemporary American Poets (Broadstone Books, 2014), Shiny, Exquisite Corpse, Sal Mimeo, Across the Margin, Nowhere, and Harriet the Blog. He studied poetry and philosophy at The New School in NYC, and has lived between San Francisco and Brooklyn since 1999.

Thanks to Aaron for sharing his tattoo and poem with us here on The Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2016 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Liz Purvis

Today's tattooed poet is Liz Purvis, who is sharing two tattoos that punctuate her arms:

Liz tells us:

"Chico at Hillsborough Street Tattoos [in Raleigh, NC] did both of these. Getting two small, but generally visible, tattoos was a bit of a birthday present to myself last year after a particularly rough patch. I love the shape of ampersands, and have recently started to use them in my work. Both symbols have ideas of continuity that I find compelling, and I like the daily reminders. The semi-colon is part of The Semi-Colon Project."

Liz shared the following "revised version of my poem 'Before the Movie,' which was previously published in cahoodaloodaling":

Before the Movie

        after Marie Howe, for D.G.B.

My friend David & I are standing outside arguing

about film romances & storylines.

He says he believes there’s such a thing as soul-mates.

I twist my mouth up as I say, I don’t think so. It’s complicated;

we’re complicated; it’s foolish to think

there’s only one person you could spend the rest of your life with

without killing.

David says, Maybe it’s not just one. Maybe we’re trying to find them all,

trying to fit the jagged pieces of our insides to one another.

I tell David that sounds painful.

I ask, & what if you don’t meet them? Or

are you all destined to run into each other, bouncing off cities like pinballs?

We’re leaning back to rest against the cool brick of the building, taking turns

inhaling tar from the same cigarette, & I find myself

repeating what I said to my last love: love is choice, I used to say to him.

D.H. Lawrence says, I prefer my heart to be broken, & when I tell David this he laughs

until he’s coughing, says, That’s crazy.

I know, I say. That’s just exactly it.

Between David’s fingers, our cigarette has burned all the way down

to the filter. He stubs what’s left out on the brick, dotting the wall with ash.

We should probably get tickets,

David says. We should probably go in.

The hall into the theater is cavernous, its vaulted ceiling

covered in mirrored panels staring back at us.

~ ~ ~

Liz Purvis is an MFA candidate in Poetry at NC State. Her work has been published in Deep South Magazine, Damselfly Press, and Colonnades, among others. She has work forthcoming in Zeit|Haus. In 2015, her poem “Before the Movie” was nominated for Independent Best American Poetry by Cahoodaloodaling. She can be reached at liz.purvis.writer@gmail.com.

Thanks to Liz for sharing her lovely tattoos and poem with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2016 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Elizabeth Hoover

Today's tattooed poet is Elizabeth Hoover.

The tattoo she's sharing may not look like much, but I find the story fascinating.

Elizabeth explains:

"I got my tattoo in 2002 or 2003 (I think). I really love my tattoo, but am self-conscious about the true story behind it. Over the years, I’ve made up some little fibs, but here is the truth: I fell asleep while drawing on a plane coming back from Italy. It was the first time I left the country, which was a big deal for me. When I woke up, I saw this weird little drawing on my forearm. As soon as I got off the plane, I went to Kinko's and Xeroxed my arm. I couldn’t stop thinking about the drawing so about a year later I got it tattooed on my arm at ArtFreek in Providence, RI. The tattoo reminds me about the importance of the accidental in art-making and the power of doing things you thought you’d never do (like travel). Also, I just like the way it looks.

Elizabeth shared her poem below, which previously appeared in  [PANK].

Trade and Transformation

after “The Woman,” dir. Lucky McKee

A man captures a wild woman,

keeps her strung up in the basement.

She snaps the air as father and son

wash her with hoses, dress her

in a long skirt and cornflower blouse.

If she imitates certain sounds, they ease

her chains, bring her food. Their eyes

teach her acquiescence is beautiful.

Though escape hinges on her feet

reaching the floor, her blood kicks not that.

Outside great pines sweep obsidian air

and somewhere a creek drags pebbles

to an eddy deep enough to swim in.

Somewhere aches bloom sweetly

in muscle and tendons grip rocks, branches.

She longs for familiar water, knows mouth

is her only weapon—sharpness

of her teeth, softness in her throat, mineral

memory to tell her: bite or please.

~ ~ ~

Elizabeth Hoover is a feminist poet who enjoys working on projects with a conceptual or research element. Her current project, Some Poems About Pictures is a hybrid text that offers art as a space for resistance to and transformation of dominant gender narratives. A portion of that project was awarded the 2015 StoryQuarterly essay prize, judged by Maggie Nelson. Her poetry has appeared in [Pank], The Los Angeles Review, and The Pinch, among others. She is a freelance book critic and lives in Pittsburgh with her partner and a cat named Brad. You can see more of her work at ehooverink.com.

Thanks to Elizabeth for sharing her cool tattoo and lovely poem with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2016 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.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.

Brennan DeFrisco's Dying Rose [The Tattooed Poets Project]

Today's tattooed poet is Brennan DeFrisco, who shared this tattoo with us:

Brennan explains:

"I chose the design of a dying rose to balance out all the blooming, live ones I have around my ankle. It was done by Brandon Bear at Black Sea Tattoos [in Walnut Creek, California]. I was having a discussion with a poet friend about the concept of method poetry, or doing what you're writing about as you're writing about it. We were discussing what kind of experiences would lend themselves to this kind of writing prompt and agreed that getting a tattoo was among them. I wrote Stung [the poem below] on Brandon's table, as he tattooed me. It has since stood out as one of the more memorable moments of my writing career."

Here is the aforementioned Stung:

Stung

written on table at Black Sea Tattoos

it starts

like you are holding a rose

carelessly

a sharp reminder

that beautiful things

come with a price

your flesh is a hive of bees

deep in conversation

coordinating tactics, stabbing you

thousands of times with

stings as sweet as honey

pain is just another way

of knowing you’re still alive

it takes five minutes

for your nerves

to go numb

after that,

each vibration is an aphrodisiac

a caress

an aggressive scratch

a lover’s grasp around the back of your neck

and a post-coital cigarette

at the same time

I always smile

when people ask

why I have so many tattoos

if only they knew

the euphoria

of being a beekeeper

~ ~ ~

Brennan DeFrisco is an MFA candidate at Antioch UniversityLos Angeles in the Creative Writing Program with an emphasis on Poetry. He represented Berkeley at the 2015 National Poetry Slam, where his team took third place in the country. He is co-founder of Lucky Bastard Press, where he co-edits with his partner, Allie Marini. He is a California Poet In The Schools, teaching poetry to student writers across the Bay Area. He’s the author of A Heart With No Scars by Nomadic Press. His work can be found or is forthcoming in WordsDance, Oracle Fine Arts Review, jmww’s Exquisite Duet, University of Hell, Drunk Monkeys, Hermeneutic Chaos and Yellow Chair Review. He loves movies, poker, whiskey, Firefly and a particularly beautiful and talented woman. He occupies Oakland, CA.

Thanks to Brennan for sharing his tattoo and poem with us here on The Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2016 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.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.