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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“Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.”

English translation: “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

- Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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This is Dominick’s tattoo.

Simply the word “integrity.” I wanted it to be phonetically spelled because of my extreme passion for words.

In college when I learned or came along new words, it excited me to look them up. The word “integrity” comes from my interpretation in a line from “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, my favorite author. Nick Carraway is making an assessment of himself as a man in chapter 3. He thinks:

“Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”

That quote in the book stands out for me every time i read it. Fitzgerald once said, “You can stroke people with words.” I believe it.

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“Hope for the best. Expect the worst. Life is a play. We’re unrehearsed.”

- Mel Brooks

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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.

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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The quote represents the period of transcendence when one is truly in tune with themselves and their surroundings without being consciously aware of it. For example, I am an artist, so I recognize this as occurring when I zone in so completely to the process of the piece.  However, once I realize that this is occurring, the moment is gone.  I no longer see the tree with the lights in it.

When the doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw “the tree with the lights in it.”  It was for this tree I searched through the peach orchards of summer, in the forests of fall and down winter and spring for years.  Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it.  I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame.  I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed.  It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.  The lights of the fire abated, but I’m still spending the power.  Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells unflamed and disappeared.  I was still ringing.  I had my whole life been a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.  I have since only rarely seen the tree with the lights in it.  The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment when the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam.

- Excerpt from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

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“When we grab you by the ankles
Where our mark is to be made
you’ll soon be doing noble work
Although you won’t be paid
When we drive away in secret
You’ll be a volunteer
So don’t scream where we take you;
The world is quiet here.”

This is the VFD slogan from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.

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“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”

- from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie

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This tattoo belongs to Sophia from Barcelona, and it’s an excerpt from the text of the golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

Greetings to you, the lucky finder of this golden ticket, from Mr. Willy Wonka! I shake you warmly by the hand! Tremendous things are in store for you! Many wonderful surprises await you. For now, I do invite you to come to my factory and be my guest for one whole day — you and all others who are lucky enough to find my Golden Tickets. I, Willy Wonka, will conduct you around the factory myself, showing you everything that there is to see, and afterwards, when it is time to leave, you will be escorted home by a procession of large trucks. These trucks, I can promise you, will be loaded with enough delicious eatables to last you and your entire household for many years. If, at any time thereafter, you should run out of supplies, you have only to come back to the factory and show this golden ticket, and I shall be happy to refill your cupboard with whatever you want. In this way, you will be able to keep yourself supplied with tasty morsels for allyour life. But this is by no means the most exciting thing that will happen on the day of your visit. I am preparing other surprises that are even more marvelous and more fantastic for you and for all my beloved Golden Ticket holders — mystic and marvelous surprises that will entrance, delight, intrigue, astonish, and perplex you beyond measure. In your wildest dreams you could not imagine that such things could happen to you! Just wait and see! And now, here are your instructions: the day I have chosen for the visit is the first day in the month of February. On this day, and on no other, you must come to the factory gates at ten o’clock sharp in the morning. Don’t be late! And you are allowed to bring with you either one or two members of your own family to look after you and to ensure that you don’t get into mischief. One more thing — be certain to have this ticket with you, otherwise you will not be admitted. -WILLY WONKA.

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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 Slithy Toves’ Jabberwocky tattoo:

I’ve been an Alice fan since my grandmother bought me the complete works of Carroll when I was 11. Something from Alice seemed like a natural choice for my tat, and being a voracious reader, I loved the idea of using a line of text rather than an image.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

- Excerpt from the nonsense poem ‘Jabberwocky‘ from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.

Have a great weekend!

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This quote specifically holds a place in my heart because I think it represents the constant struggle to find yourself, and to hold on to it when you do. I’ve been asking myself this question my whole life and I don’t know if I’ll ever have a full answer.

“Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, THAT’S the great puzzle!”

And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.

- Chapter 2 of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

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Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a teatray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!

- “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat” as recited by the Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

This is Katie’s tattoo:

Why did I pick that line?  I knew I wanted some sort of bat tattoo that wasn’t too goth and I knew I wanted to get an Alice in Wonderland quote on my two feet so voila.  Since Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is one of my absolute all time favorites I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t think of this for months and months!

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This is Eva’s Alice in Wonderland tattoo.

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My tattoo is of the Cheshire Cat from Lewis Carol’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (original art by John Tenniel 1865). The Cheshire Cat is the only creature in Wonderland who uses logic. Though his words often seem mocking and bizarre, his process is always logical. To me the Cheshire Cat symbolizes the fragility of the border between genius and insanity.

Alice: Would you please tell me which way I ought to walk from here?
Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don’t much care where –
Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which way you walk.
Alice: — so long as I get somewhere.
Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if you only walk long enough.

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“The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo.”

- From “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by John Tenniel.

This is Jennifer C.’s tattoo:

When I was young, I would lose myself in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. It was the most imaginative story I had ever heard. This illustration comes from the amazing John Tenniel – his images were always my favorite.

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“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the cat: “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the cat, “Or you wouldn’t have come here.”

This is Jessica’s tattoo.  She says:

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This is Morgan’s tattoo:

The idea for this tattoo came from a quote out of Chuck Palahniuk’s book, Fight Club. The quote says, “It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we are free to do anything.”

I was faced with the decision of whether or not to use you’ve/you or we’ve/we. I came to the conclusion that I wanted this tattoo to represent not only myself but also my view on society. It didn’t feel right to use the word “you” because I felt as though it would then become about the person reading it and not about what I have overcome. I also felt that by saying “we” it would stay faithful to my cynicism towards society and how I believe that people do not truly understand what it means to be free inside their own minds, which is what the book is about in the first place.

This tattoo represents having strength and independence and losing all fear no matter what situations we are dealt in life. Most importantly it’s about learning to face your pain full on with your head held high instead of denying that it affects you in the first place.

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“‘I’ll drop my final anchor with the wind howling in my ears above and the swish of bilge below me,’  he declared, ‘and that way I’ll go content.’ And when the time came, I’m sure he went content.”

- From Cradle of the Deep, the fabricated autobiography by Joan Lowell.

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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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