Rogue Agent asked, and writers responded with photographs of the tattoos that celebrate, commemorate, or otherwise converge with their writing lives.
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Image description: The tattoo appears on a lower leg and shows a plate of aspic. The plate is intricately designed and the aspic is transparent but slightly reddish.
NAME: Sonya Vatomsky
GENRES: poetry, essays
Here's a photo of my aspic tattoo, which I had to celebrate my chapbook My Heart in Aspic.
Sonya tweets @coolniceghost. Visit her on the web at sonyavatomsky.tumblr.com.
Image description: The quote below appears in script over Sally Deskins' right hip and belly. Deskins wears low-rise jeans and holds a red shirt in her hand.
NAME: Sally Deskins
GENRE: arts writing
This quote is from French feminist writer/philosopher Helen Cixous’ The Laugh of the Medusa (1975): “Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time,” (the full quote ends: “Write yourself. Your body must be heard”). It is hard to describe the many levels of importance these words have to me in so little words; my artwork and interest in writing about women in all forms of art is around the body and its significance in life, society and social justice. So, her words have broad feminist intent with regards to the body, as well as telling of the power and the necessity of women (and men) expressing themselves. Also, it's fun because it is literally body as text; I’m writing on my body a quote about writing for the body to be heard.
Sally is the founding curator of Les Femmes Folles. Photo credit: Larry Ferguson
Image description: Michele McDannold models a tattoo of three interlocking circles on the nape of her neck and the words "Nothing to Lose" below it. She wears a grey shirt, and her brown hair is in buns.
NAME: Michele McDannold
GENRE: poetry
Oakland Beast Crawl, July 2012. "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." -- Janis Joplin. When the poets gather, seeds are planted. The "Nothing to Lose" tattoo was born of that. Tattooed February 2014. Photo by Alexis Rhone Fancher, taken at the "This Is Poetry" reading, BOOKSHOW, Los Angeles, CA, April 11, 2015.
Visit Michele on the web at michelemcdannold.com.
Image description: The image shows an Asian dragon tattoo on Josh Olsen's forearm. The dragon is in black ink and curled around itself so that the tattoo forms an oval.
NAME: Josh Olsen
GENRES: flash fiction/nonfiction
I have two tattoos, and both of them are bad. I got my first tattoo on my 18th birthday (of course), and it is my childhood nickname (of course), in Old English script (of course), on my left shoulder. My other tattoo is this tribal dragon, which I got when I was 23, and still an undergraduate English major at Viterbo University, in my hometown of LaCrosse, Wisconsin. This was not long after I first got really obsessed with writing, bad confessional poetry mostly, and I was very self-serious and somehow felt that this tribal dragon tattoo had some sort of deep philosophical or spiritual meaning, but now I just see it as a cliched product of the time and my place within it. My writing now, over ten years removed, is pretty self-deprecating, and I can safely make fun of myself and my surroundings, and I feel that this tribal dragon tattoo, which is occasionally mistaken for a squirrel, somehow represents that.
View some of Josh's work here.
Image description: The image shows a tattoo on Mark Blickley's lower leg. The tattoo is a green frog's head with a black hat and a red tougue. BROC is written in black under the frog's face.
NAME: Mark Blickley
GENRE: fiction, drama
I got this tattoo at age 50 because my teen-aged daughter, Deirdre, broke down my fierce resistance to one and I impulsively had it drawn on my leg while at a tattoo parlor where a friend was getting a new tattoo. I chose a frog with a beret with its name Broc stenciled below because he was a protagonist in my work-in-progress novel, Danger: Falling Rocks. I finally agreed to the tattoo because I decided to use it as a motivational tool to complete the book, as my sworn goal was when I die, people who see this tattoo would understand who Broc is based on the published book. Unfortunately, years later it remains unfinished and time is running out. I ended up hating it because it looks more like a damned Ninja turtle than a frog in a beret.
Among Mark's current work is Dream Streams, a collaboration with artist Amy Bassin, recently featured at the NYC Poetry Festival. View it here.
Image description: Maggie Bara models an oval tattoo on her right shoulder. The tattoo appears in closeup on the right, but Maggie’s face and shirt are visible on the left. Maggie has brown hair in a ponytail and a black tank top. She stands in front of a brick wall. The tattoo is oval-shaped and surrounded by a frame filled with words in German. The image shows a mermaid from behind. She sits on a hillside overlooking a river.
NAME: Maggie Bara
GENRE: dark fantasy
This piece is a tattoo of Die Lorelei, a modern German myth. The poem was written by Heinrich Heine, and is about a woman that lives along the Rhine, singing and leading sailors to their deaths. I got it in honor of my love mythology, poetry, and my Oma (German grandmother). She hates tattoos but she swears she loves this one!
Visit Maggie on Facebook.
Image description: Khairani Barokka describes her tattoo below. The image shows Khairani in the process of getting the tattoo. Her back and the back of her head are visible along with the black gloved hands of the tattoo artist.
NAME: Khairani Barokka
GENRES: poetry, fiction, nonfiction, for the stage, and interdisciplinary artworks
This picture shows the process of inking the tattoo on my back, a diptych. "X/12" represents a Jakarta home my grandparents once had, which reminds me of family and geographical roots, and of how I come from people who rebuilt home and safety from nothing, in the face of extreme challenges--of how I can do the same. Inked skin in general is a nod to escaping violent histories: tattooed Jakartans were accused of being thugs, targeted and murdered by authorities in the 1980s, when I was born. Below that is a haiku in Italian with a personal meaning, reminder of a memory of moon, of strength, of community, and to be mindful and in the moment. Haiku is one of my favorite poetic forms; good thing my landlady in Italy at the time this was made was a literary translator, and was a great help in checking my verse!
Visit Khairani on the web at khairanibarokka.com.
Image description: The tattoo is on Jen Karetnick's ankle. A red, yellow, and green mango sits on top of a brown tree stump. A green vine curls around the tree which is surrounded by green leaves. The background shows a paper sheet and one page from a book of poetry.
NAME: Jen Karetnick
GENRES: poetry, nonfiction
"Mango Tree" is one of several writerly tattoos that I have, and one of two mango tattoos. I live on the last acre of a historic mango plantation in Miami, and often write poems, non-fiction and recipes about mangoes. My books about mangoes include the Portlandia Chapbook Award-winning book of poetry, Bud Break at Mango House, and the Les Dames d'Escoffier M.F.K. Fisher Award for Culinary Excellence-winning cookbook, Mango.
Visit Jen on the web at kavetchnick.tumblr.com.
Image description: Michael Schmeltzer's tattoo is on his upper chest. It shows an open book with Japanese characters on both pages. He has black hair and wears a white button-down shirt and jeans.
NAME: Michael Schmeltzer
GENRES: poetry, lyric essay, flash fiction, reviews
I wanted a tattoo for nearly as long as I can remember but couldn't decide on what until my mid-twenties. I designed this simple piece, the open book with kanji, as a way to honor my Japanese heritage. The words themselves ("god" and "poetry") are fluid and shifting concepts I've wrestled with for years, and I imagine I'll wrestle with my entire life.
Michael tweets @mschmeltzer01. Visit him on the web at michaelschmeltzer.com.
Image description: In this black-and-white photograph, a parchment and quill design is tattooed on Amanda Williams' wrist.
NAME: Amanda Williams
GENRE: poetry
I wanted to get a writerly tattoo a few years ago, but I struggled to come up with a concept. One day, I went up to the 3rd floor of my college library to browse the archived issues of Poetry magazine (we had hard-bound issues back to the 1930's), and when I took one off of the shelf and opened it to the title page, I saw the beautiful insignia of the Press; a quill and parchment. The archaic materials nod to my first poetic love, the Renaissance poets and playwrights, and I knew it was the perfect expression of my passion.
Image description: The tattoo across A.E. Clark's forearm shows four wrenches in four different positions and the infinity symbol. A. E. Clark is wearing a blue sleeve, and her hand is posed against a light blue background.
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NAME: A.E. Clark
GENRE: poetry
I started getting tattoos as a way to feel closer to my heavily-tattooed father, who died when I was 9. He was a mechanic by trade, which my uncles have always referred to as “spinning wrenches.” The first poem I ever wrote (age 11) was about him; a poem I just finished (age 34) is about him. In my lifetime, he’s been dead more than twice as long as he was alive, so the tattoos, the poems are the only ways I’ve found to feel like I’m still his daughter.
Visit Embry on the web at aeclarkwriter.com.
Image description: Jennifer Matarese's left forearm shows the blue and pink lines of a notebook paper with a binder hole in page's top margin. The arm is posed on a black shelf, and there are book spines visible at the very top of the image.
NAME; Jennifer Matarese
GENRES: sci-fi, horror, fantasy, YA fiction
I once made a joke that what I should really do is get notebook lines tattooed on my left forearm (as I'm right-handed) so that I never have an excuse not to write. I wasn't serious at the time, but the idea stuck in my head. I thought it would just be a reminder to always be brainstorming, but I do occasionally write a story note or two on my arm when I don't have any paper on hand.
Jennifer tweets @trollprincess.
Image description: Sara Gaines has a steampunk clock tattooed on her right shoulder. The clock is in black ink with a tiny bit of red. She wears a black one-shoulder tank top and stands in a studio.
NAME: Sara Gaines
GENRE: YA fantasy
This tattoo was to celebrate the release of my first book, Noble Falling (part of the Halvarian Ruin series, represented here by the hands of the clock positioned at the hour, minutes, and seconds that correspond with the publish date. Believe it or not, but I had this tattoo before I had the official copy of my book thanks to the fact that I was living in China at the time and, well, receiving mail was a challenge.
Sara tweets @Sara_D_Gaines. Visit her on the web at saragaines.com.
Image description: Mallory Smart has the Communist hammer and sickle tattooed on her right ankle in black ink. She wears black pants and brown and white sneakers with untied laces. She stands on a wooden floor, and a wooden cabinet is visible in the background.
NAME: Mallory Smart
GENRE: poetry and short fiction
Many call me the “antisocial socialist” and it’s no joke that those two themes are almost all I write about these days. I always found activist writers like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Kathleen Hanna, Naomi Klein, and even Allen Ginsberg to be my greatest influences in life. So one night when I was stumbling back home to my apartment in Wrigleyville, I made a stop to the dingy tattoo parlor under the L and made the hammer & sickle my first tattoo. I guess it was my way of trying to transcend being a tumblr activist and show that I was willing to commit not just my words but my body to an idea.
Mallory tweets @malsmart. Visit her on the web at mallorysmart.com.
Image description: Karrie Higgins has a rose tattoo on her left shoulder. It uses red ink with black highlights. Karrie wears a grey tank top beneath a lighter grey T-shirt that is pulled down to show off the tattoo. There is a park and a temple or cathedral in the background.
NAME: Karrie Higgins
GENRE: speculative nonfiction
In his Mormon theological text, "Rube Goldberg Machines," Adam S. Miller wrote that because worlds and bodies "bleed" into one another, "to successfully resurrect a body, one would have to resurrect a world." My tattoo magic spell for my grimoire/memoir-in-process seeks to resurrect my brother by pulling off an epigenetic forgery, and my rose is the most potent element because it duplicates my brother's tattoo. My brother, as his friends say, was a "woulda been, coulda been, shoulda been" fast car yahoo, a mechanophiliac, in love with his Pontiac GTO, and I have chosen inks known to be used in industrial applications, such as automobile paints, and identical to those produced by the combustion of fossil fuels, many of which cause epigenetic changes. I am becoming a fast car, object of my brother's desire and his entire world, which given that I cannot drive because of my epilepsy, is also a radical embodiment of the larger world from which I am often excluded.
Karrie tweets @karriehiggins. Visit her blog here and her author website here.