The Tattooed Poets Project: Brittney Scott

Photo by A. M. Brant

Our next tattooed poet is Brittney Scott, who sent us the photo of the tattoo above, of the lines "you fit into me/like a hook into an eye // a fish hook/an open eye."

She tells us,

"I grew up in an abusive household. And like so many others, I sought out, no matter how dysfunctional, these similar relationships in my adult life. This tattoo, which is a stellar short poem by feminist, theorist, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, is a reminder of how dark and damaging love can be. I got this at Earthborne Studios in my home-town, Evansville, IN, after I got out of a particularly bad relationship. I believe I used it as a catalyst for change. Not only b/c poetry saved me, but b/c it was a promise to myself to break the cycle of abuse.

Brittney sent us this poem, as well, which originally appeared in Notre Dame Review, No. 36:

Blue Period

Someone left a balled up child’s sock,

all lonely looking

in the washer, abandoned at the laundromat.

I plan for the future:

tonight I’ll warm up a Banquet

dinner in the microwave

and the moths will forget the moon for the fat

bare bulb of porch light.

There is an onion rolling around in my head.

Chris shot himself nine years ago today, each day

shot by something.

If I stick my head in a dryer it sounds like a womb. A bullet hole

in the glass door rises into vision like a sun spot, 

a picture flashed without asking.

Someone painted a blue sky

on the empty wall above the dryers

with sundresses and bloomers puffing in the pretend breeze.

Even a stuffed bear lovingly hangs on the line.

Butterflies and bluebirds.

It’s like one of those dreams where you run toward someone you love

who is in danger, who has been hurt,

the person you love has been hurt badly,

but the ground just keeps coming up under your feet

and the only embrace you’ll be granted

is the ever expanding distance between.  

~ ~ ~

Brittney Scott received her MFA from Hollins University. She is the 2012 recipient of the Joy Harjo Prize for Poetry as well as the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such journals as Prairie Schooner, The New Republic, Narrative Magazine, Alaska Quarterly Review, North American Review, Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, New South, The Malahat Review, Water~Stone Review, Salamander, Notre Dame Review, Confrontation, The Journal, The Fourth River, Folio, Copper Nickel, Basalt, KNOCK, and Quiddity. Her fiction has appeared in Quarter After Eight. She teaches creative writing to adults, Girl-Scouts, and high-risk youth at Richmond’s Visual Arts Center.

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

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