The Tattooed Poets Project: Jonathan Moody

Generally, we celebrate tattooed poets during National Poetry Month, but is there ever a bad time to embrace poetry and the inked wordsmiths who ply the trade?

Earlier this month, we received this photo from Jonathan Moody:

Photo by Ricardo Alanis

Jonathan wanted to share the tattoo you can see on his right forearm. He explains:

"In anticipation of my first-born seed, Avery Langston Moody, who will be due on October 29th, 2013, I wanted to get my first tattoo. After searching on-line, I found a salient piece of artwork that contained two tattoos in one: an ankh superimposed over the Eye of Horus. The latter symbolizes my philosophy on fatherhood and writing, and the former underscores my wife’s personal struggle to conceive a child. In Egyptian mythology, The Eye of Horus represents protection and sacrifice. In other cultures, it symbolizes a human’s capacity to 'see beyond.'  As a husband and a soon-to-be father, I am a protector and am willing to offer myself as a sacrifice if my wife or son were ever in harm’s way. As an artist, I perceive the world via an alternative (i.e. creative) lens. At times, what appears in front of the artist can prevent him or her from focusing on the big picture; however, those who can access a higher plane of consciousness can look into the world as opposed to at it.

Possessing the ability to interpret and/or create metaphor is one byproduct of accessing a high level of consciousness. Technology, comet, dinosaur. To the person looking at the world, those three words are unrelated. A person looking into the world could create a metaphor that shows how all three words are linked: Technology is a comet obliterating any dinosaur roaming in the field of education. Metaphor is a bridge between seemingly bizarre connections. The Eye of Horus tattoo on my right forearm reminds me that my poetry should 'see beyond' what is possible to the eyes of the average reader.

The ankh is symbolic for life and fertility. Over the course of five years, my wife has struggled to achieve the latter. She’s battled endometriosis and ovarian cysts. Injected numerous fertility drugs. Endured a failed IUI. Fortunately, in January of 2013, her first IVF attempt was successful. Now, seven months into her pregnancy, she has a three-pound hyperactive boy kicking her right side nonstop.

Anyone who looks at my forearm tattoo will merely see an ankh superimposed over the Eye of Horus, not my wife’s fertility struggle intertwined with my struggle to become a paternal figure. As Larry, the tattoo artist at Dago’s (off of 45 South), pressed the stencil against my forearm and started doing the outline, I had considered telling him the background story. Instead, I focused. Focused less on the pain and more on keeping my right arm still for thirty minutes. Did not want the ankh to be mistaken for a lollipop."

We're honored that Jonathan chose to share this very personal story behind this tattoo. Congratulations to him and his wife on the upcoming birth of their son!

Jonathan also sent us this powerful poem, which references his ink:

SPAWN

I came to Half Price Books
hoping to find hidden Todd McFarlane
gems in graphic novel bins,
but there were as many cop cars
behind my ride as there are traffic
lights in Fresno, Texas.

My fam told me that’s how Pearland
police rolls: pulling
people over for driving three miles
above the speed limit; for not
signaling when switching lanes.

Green paint dripped
off my Chevy Caprice as if it melted
in the triple digit heat, but I was chill
chill even though the white furry dice
dangling from the mirror served as a reminder
that Driving While Black was a gamble;

I’m a veteran actor. Spent
my whole career playing the role
of an innocent man who’s convinced
himself he’s done something wrong.
This scene, no different.
Only one take to look terrified
cops would discover Colombian
raw hidden beneath
the passenger seat.

My motivation: stay alive
& return home to my pregnant wife,
so I turned down the bass
& stopped rhyming
along with Chuck D.
Exercised the right to remain
quiet on the set.

Thought I was chill chill,
not the irredeemable
monster spawn who made
a deal in Hell so he could

come back to Earth & avenge
the deaths of defenseless people
whose lives were snuffed
by the police bullets
their taxes bought.

But I felt the six hour copacetic
cosmetics job it took for me
to look human became ruined
from the sweat trickling
down my forehead:
probable cause that deep
inside I resembled
the irredeemable monster spawn
Society made me out to be.

Regrouped. Visualized
my Freedom scraping
against the coral reef of hard time.

Stuffed the license,
registration, & proof of insurance
into my smart mouth,
& feared my acting chops
would peel away like the dead
skin around my freshly
inked ankh.

~ ~ ~

Jonathan Moody received his MFA in Poetry from the University of Pittsburgh and his BS in Psychology from Xavier University of Louisiana. He’s also a Cave Canem alum whose poetry has appeared in African American Review, Crab Orchard Review, Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Xavier Review, and numerous other journals. In 2012, he was selected by a committee to be a featured reader in Houston’s Public Poetry Reading Series. Moody also appeared in Houston’s 2013 Word Around Town Poetry Tour lineup. He is the author of The Doomy Poems (Six Gallery Press, 2012) and lives in Fresno, Texas, with his wife.

Thanks to Jonathan for contributing to the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday here in August!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

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Nadine's Ankh and Orchids

I met Nadine last month and she was kind enough to share this beautiful floral piece with us:

The symbol in the foreground is her own "stylized version" of an ankh, a symbol dating back to ancient Egypt which means eternal life.

She has orchids added to the piece because her mother loves those flowers.The orchids were inked about five years ago which is remarkable because reds and yellows tend to fade more quickly on the skin and, Nadine notes, "so far my color has held true".

The ankh took about 45 minutes to do while the rest of the tattoo took five and a half hours over two sittings.

She wanted to point out that the outline is done in purple ink, not black, a nice artistic touch that she convinced her artist was a good choice.

This lovely tattoo was done at New York Adorned, by Brian Randolph.

Work from NY Adorned has been posted previously here (links to all posts tagged NY Adorned).

Thanks again to Nadine for sharing this fantastic tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Mercedes Honors Family Members with her Ink

Mercedes doesn't remember the specific shops where she got her ink, but each piece honors members of her family, both living and gone.

Mercedes is a make-up artist that has very close ties to her family, and these relationships have manifested themselves on her tattoos.

The piece I first noticed, on her right arm, was this one:


This is actually comprised of two parts, the rose and the ankh. The rose was her first tattoo, inked because her mother and grandmother were both named Rosa. The ankh and the name "Iggy" were done as a memorial for her brother who had passed away.

Her neck/upper back piece is actually three tattoos inked in succession:


Mercedes started with the top segments, which she described as tribal dolphins. They are in honor of her niece, who is a Pisces.

Next is the piece below the dolphins, which is a representation of fire that corresponds to Mercedes' birth sign Aries, whose zodiac element is fire.

Below that are flames rising from the number 3. This is for her nephew. The flames correspond to his sign, Leo, whose zodiac element is also fire, and the number represents that he is third in the family line.

Thanks to Mercedes for sharing her ink with us here on Tattoosday!

Tattoos I Know: Erika's Ink (Part 1)

A long, long time ago, in a place called BillyBlog, an idea was formed. It was the idea that became Tattoosday. I decided to celebrate the many tattoos I encountered, with a photo (or two) and a story. A Miami Ink for the blogging crowd. Nothing about the artists' personalities, all about ink. In fact, all you see is the art, and very little else of the hosts.

The idea was to find strangers willing to let me take pictures of their tattoos, and post them with an accompanying text explaining when and where and why they chose to be inked. But I needed a guinea pig, so I started with a co-worker, Sephora, who seemed to enjoy talking with me about tattoos and music of all sorts. She was game, and she inaugurated the Tattoosday feature here.

And the rest is (brief) history. The Tattoosday feature, appearing every Tuesday was so much fun, I spun it off into its own blog and it has enjoyed a small, small viewership. But a blog can only dream. Through the odds and ends and goods and bads of Tattoosday's growing pains, I would occasionally saunter over to Sephora and chat about tats. The woman who sat in front of her, Erika, would often join in the conversation, but was mum about her own tattoos (if she had any, I couldn't tell. I wasn't scanning her clothing edges for ink slippages.)

Then in November, Erika was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and lo! and behold! What did I see?



Well, now I was chatting with Erika about tattoos and she mentioned she had a lot. I asked her if she would be interested in Tattoosday and she was game. So, over the last few weeks, starting with our holiday party when she was wearing a dress that showed off most of her back, through very recently when I snapped the pictures of the last of Erika's dozen (or so) tattoos, I managed to capture the catalog of Erika's ink, which is presented here for the Tattoosday readership.

Enough of my gab, lets roll with the body art!

Erika doesn't know exact dates on all her ink, so we're going to go chronologically. First up is this basic, rudimentary rose on her right lower calf.

By the way, Erika's tattoos all have pretty good story behind them. About 14 years ago, circa 1993, she was 18 and went into Your Choice Tattoo, in East Meadow, New York (on Long Island, for you non-New Yorkers). She was scared to death of what then pain would be like, Her boyfriend suggested the location on her lower leg because it wouldn't hurt so much. Of course, in hindsight, that's one of the more painful spots because it is so close to bone.

The co-owner of Your Choice Tattoo, Joe, made her go home and get her birth certificate, because he thought her ID was fake. He even joked that she would need to get a letter from her mother!

Two years later, at 20, she was back at Your Choice, this time working with artist Michelle, who put this unicorn on the right side of her lower back:



Erika explains that she was still a kid at heart, and that she had a lot of unicorns in her room. She saw this design on the wall and went with it. It's a reminder of that little girl she once was.

A year later, she was back at Your Choice Tattoo, with Michelle again. Like for most people, Ericka's tattoos serve as signposts for different periods of her life. In 1996, she was dating a guy who was heavy into the Black empowerment philosophy. "He was a big 'Power to the People' guy," Ericka recalls, "And I wanted to show him I was down with that." She exhibited this commitment by having an Egyptian ankh inked on her left shoulder:


Because the symbol simultaneously recalls Egypt and represents the hieroglyphic symbol for "life," it still resonates as a powerful image on her skin.

A year later, she had befriended another tattoo artist, Joe, at Behind the Lines II Tattooing in Jamaica, Queens. She had this small piece inked on her right shoulder:


The piece in question is the heart with the crown and the name "Marie". It's a tribute to her mother, Marie, who, Erika acknowledges, is "the Queen of her Heart". Below the tribute to her mom is another piece by Joe at Behind the Lines. It's a hybrid of the Puerto Rican flag and the Haitian flag. Her father is from Puerto Rico and her mother is from Haiti and she wanted a tribute to her heritage.


A year later (approximately 1998), she was hanging out with Joe and things were slow in the shop. He offered up, "I'm bored. Want a tat?" Ericka was game and this bluebird was inked on her neck:


She acknowledges that there is no real story behind it, but that she does like the art. Ericka is a great example of how tattoos can be addictive and that, once you get one, you want to keep going.

This concludes part 1 of Ericka's Ink. Stay tuned for part 2!

Thanks again to Ericka for sharing her tattoos!