This awesome tattoo belongs to Molly:

This tattoo was inspired by a trip to Bread Loaf this summer, where I studied poetry with Ellen Bryant Voigt.  I have always admired the ways we can re-imagine poems outside of typical lineation, how poems can become sculptures and books can be objects of art with textures and breath.  A bit of fortune converged with my desire:  I have a dear friend in my MFA program whose husband happens to be a tattoo artist, and that husband just so wanted to spend some time on a letterpress, and I had just acquired a Kelsey platen press.  A trade was proposed, and Shawn designed the whole thing with wings in mind, something that would also resemble lungs and breathing and the lift of freedom at the end of Sharon Olds‘ oft-studied “I Go Back to May 1937.” The poem is there, on my arm, in its entirety.  Olds is my most beloved living poet, and this poem speaks to me with my own work–taking life experiences and professing:  “Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.”  Olds once said that poetry comes out of her lungs, and now I have this reminder, this collection of gorgeous language, that tells me again and again:  don’t forget to breathe, don’t forget who you are.

You can view Molly’s Flickr set for more pictures of the tattoo’s progress.

The tattoo was done by Shawn Hebrank of Identity Tattoo in Maplewood, Minnesota.

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I spent many years in the Middle East as a child and developed a deep, fundamental love for the area, the countries, the people, and the poetry. Hafiz’s work always spoke to me with its beauty and depth, and I’d been searching for the right line to commit to my body. The imagery in this reminds me of the desert and hot, stormy nights.

The wind last night brought wind of my far-traveled love to me.
I, too, will give the wind my heart and what must be shall be.

It’s come to this: no confidante will hear my secrets save
Lightning at dusk and wind at dawn as I live ardently.

Hafiz! Your amicable way has earned you what you yearn for.
Let every soul be sold to help a man of amity.

- Ghazal 98 by Hafiz

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I’ve been a Bukowski fan ever since my pop got me started on his writing (at what was probably too early an age for such booze filled tales of debauchery). I used to have this poem printed out and stuck to my fridge to remind me that, all things considered, things are pretty ok. I thought and thought and thought about getting my first (and so far only) tattoo for years and when the time came there was really only one option.

there’s no other way:
8 or ten poems a
night.
in the sink
behind me are dishes
that haven’t been
washed in 2
weeks.
the sheets need
changing
and the bed is
unmade.
half the lights are
burned-out here.
it gets darker
and darker
(I have replacement
bulbs but can’t get them
out of their cardboard
wrapper.) Despite my
dirty shorts in the
bathtub
and the rest of my dirty
laundry on the
bedroom floor,
they haven’t
come for me yet
with their badges and their rules and their
numb ears. oh, them
and their caprice!
like the fox
I run with the hunted and
if I’m not the happiest
man on earth I’m surely the
luckiest man
alive.

- “my doom smiles at me” by Charles Bukowski, from the book The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain.

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This is Benjamin’s tattoo:

My tattoo is from Walt Whitman.  The first printing of Leaves of Grass (and none of the subsequent printings) had a preface with the following quote:

“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

I got this tattoo because the quote sums up my ethics very well, and I wanted to make those ethics a part of my body, plus the hope that it helps make my flesh a great poem.

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i love the poem – the sentiment (ie- the contradiction that is love or that is ecstatic love).  the voice here can only be chaste when ravished.  and what does it mean to be ravished by god?  this picture was taken the night i had it done.

- Batter My Heart, Three Person’d God (Holy Sonnet XIV) by John Donne

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“And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!']
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: 'But how his arms and legs are thin!']
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”

This is Callie’s tattoo:

This is a question asked by a man in the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot (my favorite poet).  In the poem, he tries over and over to muster up the courage to pursue his dreams, but his fears and doubts always stop him.  This is my personal reminder everyday, a way to constantly ask myself, “Am I brave enough to make a difference in the world?”  I want to be able to answer, “Yes.”

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This is Tyler’s tattoo from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life“.

Life is real! Life is earnest
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

I got it because this poem has always spoken volumes to me and serves more or less as my maxim for living life day to day.

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I got the tattoo last spring, in honor of my husband, whose heart I carry in mine.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

- e. e. cummings, i carry your heart with me

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It’s from Part I of “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg.  The entire stanza reads:

who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of

beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along
the floor and down the hall and ended fainting
on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and

come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,

Leyna says:

… I thought better of tattooing that much obscenity on me. “Ecstatic and insatiate” seem to capture Ginsberg’s own vision of New York City, as well as the sentiment I feel as I begin my sixth (!) year living in Manhattan or an outter burough. I’m a huge fan of the beats and love having a piece of Ginsberg’s work.

Done by Derik @ Hand of Glory in Brooklyn

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I originally came across the poem in one of my most beloved books, Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott, so I have extra affection for it.

Dream Dust
Gather out of star-dust,
Earth-dust,
Cloud-dust,
Storm-dust,
And splinters of hail,
One handful of dream-dust,
Not for sale.

- By Langston Hughes

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All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

- Excerpt from A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

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I encountered this poem when I was 17 in my literary class during my junior year of high school. I was going through a really rocky period in my life, and I found a calm in reading Robert Frost’s poetry, especially when I read this poem. It is my favorite. I had originally wanted to get the entire last stanza, but I realized that A) it would be really huge, and B) it wasn’t necessary. Although at first when I walked into the tattoo shop (The Parlour Tattoo, Eugene, OR) and the jolly/cynical desk man and the very attractive tattoo artist (the man who ended up DOING my tattoo) told me how large it would be, I was kind of crushed. In fact, I was really upset. But the more I thought about it, and the more research on my tattoo I did (fonts, sizes, spread, etc.) the more I realized I didn’t need the entire stanza: I just needed “miles to go”.

What the tattoo is for me is a reminder. It is my nine letter stamp that tells me I got through the rough times, and that I can keep going–I have to keep going. And that where ever I get to in life, be it another down-hill slide or something extremely rewarding, not to stay there too long, because I have to move on, and I have to keep moving on until I die.

I am very proud of my tattoo. I loved it before he put the stencil on me.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sounds the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

- “Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost

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“when the phone rings
I too would like to hear words
that might ease
some of this.”

- Excerpt from Charles Bukowski’s poem 462-0614, in Love is a Dog From Hell.

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Broken sky mirror,
blue-shadowed snow,
June is far now,

hold while you can; show
bare of branch
stark of stalk:

ache us to know.

- Winter Vocative by William Bronk

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By a mad miracle I go intact
Among the common rout
Thronging sidewalk, street,
And bickering shops;
Nobody blinks a lid, gapes,
Or cries that this raw flesh
Reeks of the butcher’s cleaver,
Its heart and guts hung hooked
And bloodied as a cow’s split frame
Parceled out by white-jacketed assassins.

- Excerpt from “Street Song” by Sylvia Plath.

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I discovered this poem in high school and immediately fell in love with the poem as well as ee cummings’s style. The first two lines have since echoed in my brain as a sort of mantra reminding me to slow down and remember to appreciate the small pleasures in life. Also, the font is OldStyle and took me forever to decide on :) Overall, I am incredibly pleased with the tattoo!

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it’s sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there’s never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

- may my heart always be open to little by e.e. cummings.

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“I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.”

This is Drew’s tattoo:

This quote is take from “Preludes“ by T.S Eliot.  I first encountered this poem at age 15, and remember it as the first piece of poetry that really struck me.  Almost 15 years later, and I made a career change into the performing arts, and made the decision to have it tattooed on my right wrist.  It has become something of a mantra, and a reminder.  The work was done by Apro, at West Side Tattoo in Brisbane, and I could not be happier with it.

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there are so many parts of this poem that resonate with me, however I chose the first line because it reminds me to stay fluid. If there is one thing I can be sure of it’s that everything is constantly transforming.

Be ahead of all departure, as if it were already
behind you, like the winter which is almost over.
For among winters there is one so endlessly winter,
that, wintering through it, may your heart survive.

Be forever dead in Eurydice—, singing ascent,
praising ascent, returning to pure relation.
Here, among the disappearing, be, in the realm
of decline, be the ringing glass that shatters even as it sounds.

Be—and yet know Not-being’s condition,
the infinite ground of your innermost movement,
that you may bring it to completion but this one time.

To that which is used-up, as to nature’s abundant
dumb and mute supply, the unsayable sums,
joyfully add yourself and the result destroy.

- Excerpt from Sonnets to Orpheus XIII by Rainer Maria Rilke

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“If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…
If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!”

- Invitation by Shel Silverstein

This is Kaitlynn’s tattoo:

I got it in memory of all of my grandparents who have passed away, mainly for my mom’s mom, who loved Shel Silverstein’s work and collected his books – “Invitation” was one of her favorite poems.

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225 days under grass
and you know more than I.
they have long taken your blood,
you are a dry stick in a basket.
is this how it works?
in this room
the hours of love
still make shadows.

when you left
you took almost
everything.
I kneel in the nights
before tigers
that will not let me be.

what you were
will not happen again.
the tigers have found me
and I do not care.

- “For Jane” by Charles Bukowski

Amanda got this tattoo after her mother died of cancer, 5 years ago this past memorial day:

Of all the poems I have read about loss, this one, to me, is the most subtle, the most striking, and the closest thing to describing grief I have come across.  I got these lines done to commemorate both her memorial, as well as for the open ended nature of the quote itself.  I figure the tigers can mean any sort of adversity, and to not care can be either a submission, or a lack of fear.  Because of this, the quote reminds me that it’s ok to feel pain, as well as that it can be met with resilience, and even a sense of detachment, which is essential for forward momentum in life.

They were done by Aron Mathews of 7th Street Tattoo in Little Rock, AR.

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