Siobhan's Phantom Tattoo

Although it is April and we are posting the tattoos of thirty poets over the thirty days, it's hard to ignore the good people who make Tattoosday possible, my fellow inked New Yorkers, and visitors from afar.

It's even more difficult to ignore the unseasonably warm weather and the resulting flurry of tattoos that reveal themselves after a cold and inhospitable winter.

So it is with pleasure that I can share some tattooed folk who are not necessarily poets, to go with our inked writers.

Take for instance, Siobhan (pronounced shuh-vawn for those unfamiliar with this Irish name), who walked by me in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, flashing this recognizable tattoo:


Perched above her left ankle, this design is based on the artwork for the widely-popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, The Phantom of the Opera.


You would imagine that someone who would go so far as to tattoo their leg with a show's artwork would be a huge fan. You'd be correct.

Siobhan informed me that (as of April 2010), she had seen Phantom over twenty-five times, including productions in Minneapolis, San Francisco, London and, of course, on Broadway.

This is her first tattoo and was inked by Joe Mags at Brooklyn Ink, in Bay Ridge. Work from Joe and the crew at Brooklyn Ink has appeared quite often on Tattoosday, and can be seen collected by clicking here.

Thanks to Siobhan for sharing her inspiring tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

The Tattooed Poets Project: Erica Rivera

Today's tattooed poet is Erica Rivera from Minneapolis. She sent along this lovely photo:


Erica explains:

"This tattoo was both a 24th birthday present to myself (and perhaps a mini-rebellion after my divorce as well). It is the astrological symbol for Gemini, which I chose because I embody the twin personalities Geminis are infamous for.

The tattoo was done at the Ink Lab in Minneapolis by a man whose name I know longer remember but recall as being very gentle, especially since this was my first time. I’ve since gone on to get four more tattoos: another astrological symbol on my forearm and three emblems from the marathons I’ve completed on my ankles."

Erica Rivera is the author of Insatiable: A Young Mother’s Struggle with Anorexia (Berkley, 2009). She is the former first-place winner of the Powderhorn Writer’s Festival and her poetry has appeared in Moon Journal, The Mirage, and Writer’s Journal. She blogs at http://www.maneaterbook.com/blog.htm.

Head on over to BillyBlog to read one of Erica's poems here.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Christine Hamm

Today's tattooed poet is Christine Hamm:


Christine, a fellow Brooklynite, explained her tattoo as follows:

"Why my tattoo? Is it a museum on my arm? Is it some kind of message from outerspace? Children run to me just to touch it: ask me what the words mean, what I'm trying to spell. There are no words, only water.

For many years, I had been thinking about getting matching tattoos of waves splashing up my calves to my knees, as if I were wading in the ocean, perpetually. I thought about the cost, I thought about how the tattoos would look with a miniskirt -- I realized that if I got them, I'd always want to be wearing jeans rolled up to my knees and salt-stained t-shirt. I can't carry seashells all the time in my pockets, I can't be brushing the sand out of my hair every five minutes. So I decided to take less of a plunge, enter the water one arm at a time. It started off quite slow. Are you sure you don't want a fish, the artist kept asking me as we mapped out my image on tracing paper. Everybody else gets a fish. Just water, I said, just waves. The tattoo was to celebrate --- some kind of new awakening, finally going back to grad school to get my PhD in Lit like I always wanted, finally believing I could achieve something more. The waves are Asian-inspired; many who see my arm mention Hokusai, but the water is not taken directly from him. I was thinking of Zen when I finally decided on these particular waves; I was thinking that if I could just be in the water, neither sinking nor floating above, if I could just be. Water has always suggested to me some kind of slower, purer imitation of our world, something more real and less sharp. Not just amniotic fluid, not just rain, but the color, the there-not there texture, the kiss of it."

And that explanation, my friends, is one of the many reasons I love the Tattooed Poets Project.

She credits the work to Mike Bakaty at Fineline Tattoo NYC on 1st Avenue in Manhattan, who inked this about three years ago.

Christine is a PhD candidate in English Literature, teaches at CUNY in New York City, and was runner-up to the Queens Poet Laureate. Her second book of poetry, Saints & Cannibals, is coming out this spring. For more about her, go to her blog here.

To read a poem from Christine, as part of the Tattooed Poets Project, head over to BillyBlog here.