Michael VanCalbergh's Incredible Tattoo on the Tattooed Poets Project

Today's tattooed poet is Michael Van Calbergh, who shared this "incredible" tattoo:

Michael explained:

"I don’t recall which shop I got the tattoo at or the name of the artist, but I do remember wanting this tattoo for a long time before getting it.

Since I was a kid, I’ve been obsessed with the Hulk. He was always misunderstood and, often, attacked for his difference, and I saw myself in him. I was a large kid, extremely socially awkward (once removing a smudge on a classmate’s face without asking), read comics, played D&D (and told people about it), was picked on, and had a hard time making friends because of this. The Hulk was the perfect outcast to see myself in.

Later, and closer to the time I actually got the tattoo, I realized that the Hulk was a challenge to specific types of (hyper)masculinity that I also tried to challenge. Because of my weight, there were a lot of assumptions of the type of man I should be, but I always felt like my exterior Hulk hid my real, interior Bruce Banner. I liked reading and writing and didn’t want to participate in typical rites of passage to manhood, but I pretended to because that was expected. The Hulk/Bruce Banner served as a reminder, though, that what you looked like on the outside didn’t define you.

At the same time I found poetry as another outlet, I also decided I would finally get the tattoo. I figured if I made my obsession permanently printed on my back, I would have to live as myself no matter how green, angry, or misunderstood I became. Plus, I think it looks pretty cool."

Michael sent us two poems, and we are sharing both, entitled “The Mud God” and “A Story of Men”. He explained that "The Mud God," previously published in Apex Magazine in April 2016, "plays with my obsession which comics, work, and masculinity, and I think is most obviously connected to the tattoo I have."  The other poem, which is appearing here for the first time, "deals with a lot of the issues and ideas that [Michael is] obsessed with regarding the Incredible Hulk."

The Mud God

Every morning I wake up heavier,

my throat filled with dirt. What I can’t hack up

I wash down with coffee and cough syrup.

I try to rinse the smell of wet cigarettes

from my body as I pick out

the stones and animals that get caught inside

my chest. When I leave, the world is the same:

            The Others walk by, skirts lighting the way,

            barely pausing to look beyond the inside

            of their eyes. I recognize some, like Grease and Ash,

            who ignore me, as I ignore them.

            It’s easier to look away than stare

            at faces worn like mine. Then I work,

                        replace the ground dried by the sun with large

                        pieces of my cheek and the new jobs always

                        with my back. I yell, as my wounds grow new,

                        to no-one, constantly. It goes slowly.

                        Most nights, I drink and bury my head long

                        enough to want to go home. Every day

I’m less surprised by this life

and consider, for a moment, the tub.

How long would it take to dig through

my stomach, drag as much intestine

as my hands can hold and cram them down my throat

until I found purpose?

A Story of Men

This is a story of men.

Strong men. Tough men. Men who hunted.

Men who had sons who turned into men

who had more sons. These men built things,

got their hands filthy with grease and old age. Men

who were proud to be called men by those they called

men. This is a story

of men. Men who wept when their sons wept.

Men who lost

then tried and lost

and tried again to prove

their genetic disposition toward loss.

They were men with the doors closed,

lights off, eyes fixed on the carpet peaking

between their toes.

These men rose, put on clothes

they hoped made them smell like men

to men who smelled the same.

This is a story of men hoping

to understand what that means.

~ ~ ~

Michael VanCalbergh is a part-time lecturer at Rutgers-Newark, where he also received his MFA in poetry. When not writing, he can be found dancing in various retail outlets at his daughter’s command. His work has appeared in Apex Magazine, The Collagist, Naugatuck River Review, and others. He is also one half of Words for Dinner, a comedy etymology podcast that can be found on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play.

Thanks to Michael for sharing his tattoo and poems with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2017 Tattoosday. The poems 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.

Christina Quintana on the Tattooed Poets Project

Our next tattooed poet is Christina Quintana:

This is a cool photo, in which you can see two of Christina's tattoos. Let's let Christina explain while we take a closer look:

"My first tattoo was all about being in the present. 

I'm a terribly nostalgic person, so I'm constantly trying to be here now. I'm also obsessed with mail (see: The Perpetual Postcard Project). I wanted to make my tattoo a mail stamp that appeared to have been sent, like you see on postcards past and present. The date reflects the date I got the tattoo and where I was: New York, NY. When I first got the tattoo, my therapist joked (since I'm a gender non-confirming person), you're officially 'mail'!

I chose the buffalo grazing on the notepad because the bison is my spirit animal. It may sound silly, but my whole life I have revered these creatures. As a small, high energy person, there is something about the bison's formidable size and peacefulness that has always awed me. When thinking about the tattoo, I loved the juxtaposition of this animal I adore alongside my passion/career-- a reminder to keep steady along this wild life journey.

Sue (@sweetsuetattoo) from East River Tattoo (@eastrivertattoo), a fantastic shop out in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, is the artist of both of my tattoos. I'm dreaming on a third and will likely go back to her. I can't recommend her enough if you're looking for an original black and white. She was so jazzed about getting the draft right for my bison--it was wonderful. We named him Mortimer right there in the shop!"

I can't agree with Christina more. I actually met Sue Jeiven in Penn Station back in 2011 and featured one of her tattoos here and some of her work in 2013 here.

Christina also shared the following poem:

Other Off

Wouldn’t you love to unzip

your other off,

like a whisp of smoke,

when no one was looking?

You wonder,

Which parts can you peel off,

Like a mask,

And which parts are permanent.

What is

Passing?

What is

Choice?

I’d like to be done with

the ideas you

have about me

and what you

say is my “lifestyle”

but is really my life.

I’d like to believe

you weren’t looking

pale when

my partner

and I kissed

across the table

from you

and your fiancé.

I’d like to know

that we are equals,

and really believe it.

~ ~ ~

Christina Quintana is a New York-based writer with Cuban and Louisiana roots. She is the author of the poetry chapbook, The Heart Wants (Finishing Line Press 2016). Her poetry and prose has appeared in Front Porch Journal, Saw Palm, Foglifter, and Nimrod International Journal, among others. For more, visit cquintana.com.

Thanks to Christina for contributing to the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2017 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.

Sheila Squillante Shares Two Tattoos on the Tattooed Poets Project

Today's tattooed poet is Sheila Squillante, who is sharing two tattoos:

Sheila explains:

"These are my only tattoos, gotten nearly twenty years apart. The first, a wrist vine (it goes all the way around), I got at Studio Zee on State Street in New Haven, CT. I was on my lunch break from a coffee house job. It wasn't exactly a whim because I had thought about it, but I also didn't tell anyone I was going because I was worried I would lose my nerve or be talked out of it. I was 27 years old and my first marriage had just ended, leaving me scrambling to locate myself. It's a cliche, I know, but this is my 're-inventing myself' tattoo. I remember I specifically wanted it placed somewhere I could see it every day. A reminder. It's faded but I still love it."

Then, there's this lovely iris tattoo:

Sheila describes this piece:

"My second is brand new, but I have been thinking about it for at least 20 years. Irises are my favorite flower, and I have always been drawn to those 18th century copperplate botanical prints. Michelle Joy at Gypsy Tattoo Parlor n Pittsburgh has a background as a rare book dealer, and much of her work has the appearance of intricate wood cuts. I knew I wanted her to do my iris. The reason for the timing is in the caption: 'Fig. 46.' I turned 46 in October, bringing me to the age my father was when he died. I have dreaded this year, but as it came closer, I knew I wanted to mark it for us both." 

Sheila also sent us, the following poem, originally published in issue 14 of Eleven Eleven, noting, it "is not about tattoos or flowers, but it about heartbreak:"

Eggs for the Broken Hearted

Eggs for forgetting you could still break like that.
                            Like this.
Eggs when you’ve broken someone else.
Cracked open.
Eggs over cold rice in a hot skillet. The popping sound everyone makes.
Stirred and stirring.
Eggs broken and filled.
                            Rice, vice.
Eggs before poems and after you swear them off.
Egg as absolute. Egg as always.
Eggs inside. Swallowed whole or knocking hello on the walls of please no more.
What can this egg do? This one and this one?
Inside earthenware. Nesting like crows
inside the hollow of your hollow of your hollow.
Cracked and salted and swirled there.
                            There.
Eggs when you think you could do better. Could have done better.
When you think you could still write a poem as glossy rich
and filling as yolk over rice. Deep blue bowl
to keep the heat. Wrap your hands around it.
Eggs for when you want to burn yourself.
What egg?
What is an egg?
Egg as infection or invasion. Smooth and hard. Cold and unswallowable.
                            Stuck.
In the pan, oil sizzles or water boils or water simmers
and you slide yourself in.
Feel yourself. Congeal. Stiffen against
this sadness, your center which wants to run
                            loose and away.
Eggs that hang together, stay
in the soup, as they say.
Ribbons of egg, threaded through
noodles or over rice, billowing
in broth, tongue- kissed with ginger.
              I will feed it to you, sweetheart
              spoon by too-hot spoon–

~ ~ ~

Sheila Squillante is the author of the poetry collection, BEAUTIFUL NERVE (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016). Recent poems and essays have appeared or will appear in places like Indiana Review, Waxwing, North Dakota Quarterly, Menacing Hedge and River Teeth. She teaches in the MFA program at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, where she edits The Fourth River. From the couch in front of good or bad t.v., she edits the blog for Barrelhouse. Visit her: www.sheilasquillante.com Twitter: @sheilasquill

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

This entry is ©2017 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.

Lauren Krouse and Her Ensō

Today's tattooed poet is Lauren Krouse:

Lauren is sharing this cool tattoo on her inner right arm:

Lauren explains:

"My tattoo is an ensō, which is a circle hand-painted in one uninhibited brushstroke, expressing a moment when the mind has let go and the body is free to create. It's a sacred symbol of Zen Buddhism, a philosophy I live by, which reflects the perfection in imperfection and the higher non-dualistic truth of the completeness and fullness of things in emptiness: form is void, and void is form. I got this tattoo at Cape Fear Tattoo [in Wilmington, NC]from Sam Lesher (@tattoos_art_by_sam).

Lauren also sent us the following poem:

Ars poetica

I.

Poetry is nothing but an attempt
at full-absorption for people who think
they feel more than anyone else does.

It’s a practice in ego-maintenance,
a way of honing one’s pretentiousness.
A friend once said to me, “It’s impossible

to be in a poetry class without being
pretentious”: characterized by an assumption
of dignity or importance, especially

when exaggerated or undeserved.
A poet once said to me, “Our class is like
a collection of mental illnesses.”

And I’m still trying to understand
the great anger I have towards poets,
and how despite this, I envy them.

It’s the same anger, the same feeling I had
towards Christians when I couldn’t find God.
They were so frustrating in their faith,

in this belief that things could
really mean something.

II.

it’s a sinking in dark, transparent blue,
your becoming a fluid that slips through
nets, that tangles itself noiselessly.

someone sings like a wisp of light under
water, like the wet sound of a heartbeat
monitor, sibylline, words that rise from

nothing. A chasing, a clawing then calm
falling, the feeling of forgiving someone
without even trying, without even trying,

the anger slips away. The sound of hard
running, of soft but calloused feet,
the realization over again that sound
gives way to silence

III.

Poetry is nothing but an outpouring of love so strong
it creates heaving lightness, weary energy, fogged clarity,
something so big-small that it burgeons and ceases,
suffocates and resuscitates, it is enough writing for
the hand and mind to become one, for labels to peel
away, and if you can understand a love so strong it
encompasses hate, like a sadness deepened with joy,
you’re closer than I am to really touching it.

IV.

A good poem is a poem that makes me feel something
even if I don’t want to feel it.

V.

A good poem brings to mind words you forgot existed,
like sibylline, and you look them up, and they fit.
A good poem is effortless effort and somewhat miraculous.

~ ~ ~

Lauren Krouse’s poetry can be found in Lithizine, A Narrow Fellow, Paper Darts, and other
publications. Her poem “black sun” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Currently, she is taking a
little break from poetry to pursue her MFA in creative nonfiction at UNC-Wilmington.

Tony Trigilio, The Star, and An Adaptor (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Today's tattooed poet is Tony Triglio, who shared two tattoos. First this cool piece, representing The Star tarot card:

Tony explained:

"I’ve been reading Tarot cards for so long, almost 30 years, that I had a tough time deciding what to choose for this tattoo: the cards that are most important to me change over time, as I grow and my psyche and external circumstances change. But The Star has always been a constant. It’s a card that represents artists and artistry—often a card that signifies writing and music. It’s also a vital dream card. If The Star shows up in a tarot spread, this suggests that the querent’s dream-life is likely central to the reading. In this way, the card is a key pathway to the unconscious for me. The woman in the card pours water on the ground from a jug in her left hand; this water flows into the pond where the woman also pours water from a different jug in her right hand. Her left leg is touching the ground, bent at the knee, while her right foot is in the water. What is on the surface—literally what 'grounds' us—is inextricable from the below-ground flow. It’s how I would like to live, with my conscious and unconscious minds in constant, interconnected conversation with each other."

He credited The Star to Esther Garcia (@butterstinker) of Chicago’s Butterfat Studios (@butterfatstudios).

He also shared this tattoo of a familiar symbol:

Tony explained the reason he got this 45 record adaptor:

"This was my first tattoo—a simple, iconic image from my childhood, back when 45rpm records were made with holes in their center that were too big for the record to be played on a standard turntable. You needed to buy a cheap, yellow plastic adaptor that would snap into place in the center of the record. The adaptor featured a smaller hole in its center, and this hole fit perfectly into the spindle at the center of a turntable. I didn’t realize that the 45 adaptors were virtually obsolete until I got the tattoo. It became a generational marker. The only folks under 25 who could identify the tattoo were record collectors and audiophiles. One of my students once asked me after class, 'What’s your tattoo? Is it a religious symbol?' As a musician, and as someone who can’t really be happy without being surrounded by music, I said, 'Depends on how you define religion'... The tattoo was created at a shop in Oakland, California, many years ago."

Tony shared the following poem:

Sonnet—To Science

                        (After Poe)

A Death’s-head Hawkmoth smells so much
like a bee, he’s allowed into the hive and steps
over the workers as he raids the honey.
It’s what comic books call weird science. 
Eventually, we all disintegrate from a
sack of blood and organs into a pool of black
and red liquid, then something insensate. 
We’ve seen this plot before.  Everything

is derivative.  A man in white lab coat brags to
his wife that he can convert any living thing
to its liquid state then back into a completely
different solid object.  The man is sweeping
pollen from asphalt outside his laboratory cabin. 
The dust yellow, tinged with pink sunrise.  

~ ~ ~

Tony Trigilio’s most recent collection of poetry is Inside the Walls of My Own House: The Complete Dark Shadows (of My Childhood), Book 2 (BlazeVOX [books], 2016). He is the editor of Dispatches from the Body Politic: Interviews with Jan Beatty, Meg Day, and Douglas Kearney (Essay Press, 2016) and Elise Cowen: Poems and Fragments (Ahsahta, 2014). He teaches poetry at Columbia College Chicago, where he is Interim Chair of the Creative Writing Department. His website is http://www.starve.org.

Thanks to Tony for sharing his poem and tattoos 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.

Jessica Lakritz with e e cummings on Her Ribs

Let's just call today Literary Rib Tattoo Day on the Tattooed Poets Project!

We had Goethe this morning, and now we have e e cummings, on the ribs of Jessica Lakritz:

Here's a closer look:

Jessica tells us:

"The first tattoo I ever got was in 2011, four lines from the ee cummings poem you said Is, and they still ring as true to me as the day Cheyenne Sawyer (@cheyennesawyer) from Atlas Tattoo (@atlastattoo) in Portland, Oregon put them there. I will never forget that he called me the night before saying his hand was slammed in a car door and he wasn't sure if he could do it. It was my first tattoo, and I really wanted it to be perfect, but I also knew he was pretty much the best tattoo artist in the city, and he was squeezing me in a between other tattoos because it wouldn't take long. He had no other openings for months, so I went with it. When he called in the morning, he said he was ok, and I asked, are you sure? He said, don't worry Jessica. And so it went."

This is the cummings poem, in full:

you said Is

you said Is
there anything which
is dead or alive more beautiful
than my body,to have in your fingers
(trembling ever so little)?
                           Looking into
your eyes Nothing,i said,except the
air of spring smelling of never and forever.

....and through the lattice which moved as
if a hand is touched by a
hand(which
moved as though
fingers touch a girl's
breast,
lightly)
        Do you believe in always,the wind
said to the rain
I am too busy with
my flowers to believe,the rain answered

And Jessica sent one of her poems, as well:

Surrender

Start here: bend over
an open window, floor 4
that’s El Raval screaming
in la madrugada, asking
instead of praying like a slave.
I can feel you
listening, the vibrato
of a hive of bees, can you
choose your thoughts?
Don’t answer. I’ve been a blackbird
circling the temples of the soul,
mostly eyes and longing.
And then I appeared
inside la madrugada
of the mind and the blackbirds
around the temple spelled out
SURRENDER
over that patient piece of sky.

~ ~ ~

Jessica Lakritz (@jessandthesea)  is the author of You Had Me at Topography, which she describes as a "story in poems told using the technique of Julio Cortázar in his novel Hopscotch. She is "a poet, a writer, a dreamer, a traveler, a joy billionaire." Right now, her main project is called Sex on Sundaze, a fascinating adventure "where poetry meets the human body as its canvas." She writes new, original poems inspired by the model(s) featured. She tells us "the project has evolved to create a greater connection between words and our human sense of touch, as a necessary part of writing on people is touching them." You can find Jessica on http://jessicalakritz.com or on http://sexonsundaze.com, as well as on Instagram @sexonsundaze and Facebook facebook.com/sxonsundaze/.

Thanks to Jessica for sharing her art with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2017 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.

Louise Bassini with Goethe on Her Ribs

Tattooed poets featured on the Tattooed Poets Project often come with a long list of publication credits, but occasionally I receive submissions from folks who are not "established," per se. One of our poets today, Louise Bassini, hails from South America, and I wanted to include her work here.

First, this tattoo on her ribs:

Louise explains:

"I had this tattooed by Jeferson Martins (@esperanzatattoo) at Esperanza Tattoo Shop in Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil). It's "Wahlverwandtschaften" (Elective Affinities), the title of a book written by my favorite author, Johann Goethe. The way Goethe describes the simplest details shows pure mastership. It had me in love from the first quote and as the title is so meaningful (to me, at least), I decided to have it tattooed."

Louise shared the following poem:

Absolution

I was humiliated by the silence

And above it all

By my complete lack of knowledge

In the required subject

I wish I could swoon or vanish

But I did not

I saw each and every pitiful look

Of those staring at me

I silently found a chair

In that hostile environment

And avoiding the eyes of people

I sat almost breathless

Praying to be unnoticed

And I got smaller

And smaller

Until I was inside myself

Peering into something to distract me

From my own existence

I found a small piece of poetry

On which I hung myself

Trusting that it would soon

Fly me away -

It was comforting

Like finding a tiny diamond

While drowning in the mud.

~ ~ ~

Louise Bassini was born in Porto Alegre (Brazil), in 1988. She has shown interest in poetry since she was 3 years old, developing throughout the years a personal passion for American and European Romantism. Among her influences, she highlights Goethe, William Blake and Edgar Allan Poe. Her interest in literature has brought with it a deep passion for languages, having she also attended intensive classes of Russian at Saint Petersburg State University. You can find her on Wattpad here: https://www.wattpad.com/user/LouiseBassini.

Thanks to Louise for her contribution to the Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2017 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.