Hats in the Royal Wedding

1. Princess Leticia from Spain
2. Tara Palmer & Tomkinson
4. David & Victoria Beckham
5. Marie Chantal Miller
6. Nick Clegg & Miriam Gonzalez
7. Princess Eugenie & Princess Beatrice of York

Hats off to these hats

Greg Kadel  photographs Hailey Clauson for Numéro #123

The Tattooed Poets Project: Debbie Kirk

I always like to finish up the Tattooed Poets Project on a strong note, so today's tattooed poet, the last of this year's series, is the heavily-tattooed poet Debbie Kirk.

It also happens to be Debbie's birthday today, as we check out one of her tattoos. More specifically, let's look at the top of her left arm:

This piece, complete with straight razor, brass knuckles and cherry bomb, bears a banner that proclaims "Bow to your elders, you Emo Fucks."

I mean, what more can I say about that?

In discussing which tattoo of Debbie's to use, this exchange took place:

Tattoosday: "I hesitate to use the emo one because of the language and because I'm sure people will not understand why you would get it, but that makes me want to use it more".

Debbie: "its a favorite with peeps...it has been declared the sexiest tattoo ever..."

Tattoosday: "I love tattoos but they are generally so benign nowadays, so it's nice to see one with a true fuck-all attitude."

Debbie: "Yeah, that defines me what you said right there....and why I got the tattoo. I think that single tattoo is the most ME. I can be a bit honest...which is why people like my poetry."

Where'd she get the tattoo? Debbie recalls " I just remember I got it in Venice 5 years ago from a girl who proposed to me when I told her my idea...I still tell that story. I KNEW it was good with that reaction and she was hot."
 
Debbie gave us several poems to choose from, and the one we selected, she says, is very representative of her work:

Little Frankenstein girl

 

Little Frankenstein girl

has the hands of a pianist

And the heart of a broken organ

With thorns, glass

Bats and Indian ink

Seeping thro…

Sewn together

Crookedly stitched

Like a pastel valentine heart

Filled with mismatched parts

Little Frankenstein girl

Has the right brain of a killer

Her right hand is dominant

While her left foot always faces away

Wanting to disconnect

To run

To be free

To not be part of this

Fucked up experiment

Dreamt up by

A genius dressed in rags

And chased by demons

The kind that really scratch and bite

When you are fast asleep

Little Frankenstein girl

Is not a little girl anymore

The curls in her hair

Dreaded up in the sun

Medusa in the wind

Her loud strong voice

Muffled under the stitches

That firmly binds her lips together

Bondage bringing pleasure

Only to those who wish

To keep her silent

(and they are many)

The little Frankenstein girl

Can’t count the stitches on her wrists

From all of those nights

With her right hand doing

What her left foot

Wanted to walk away from

And her not understanding

That she was never really alive

In the first place

Little Frankenstein girl

All mixed up

And

Mix matched

Returning every evening

With fresh wounds to be sewn

From another vain attempt

To be mortal for just a few seconds

Before the fall

Little Frankenstein girl

Stolen parts

Come with stolen lies

Maggots and flies.

The gravedigger, looking to make a buck

Steals her a kiss

The moistness quenches her lips

He promises more kisses tomorrow

She scurries home

Knowing full well

She’s damned to a life of stolen kisses

And malfunctioning hearts

that spit in the moonlight.

~ ~ ~

Debbie Kirk has published 6 chapbooks and been in 12 anthologies and hundreds of print and online zines. She lives in Santa Cruz with her dog Dr. Gonzo.  She has a website she rarely updates at tntkirk.com but she can be best located lurking around Facebook!  Also check out http://tntkirk.com/.

Thanks to Debbie for sharing her tattoo and poetry with us here as we close out the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday. Also, we wish her a very happy birthday today!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Lizzie Wann

Here, on the penultimate day of the Tattooed Poets Project, our contributor is Lizzie Wann:

Lizzie explains:

As I came into my poetic self in college, I knew I wanted a tattoo to symbolize that. My friend, Kevin, designed it for me and I carried it with me for a while. For spring break in 1993 or 1994, I went to Seattle with 4 of my best friends at the time. We happened into a cool tattoo shop and 4 of us got our first tattoos (the 5^th person didn’t want one).It was great because we each got something that symbolized who we were at the moment but also who we hoped to be in the future.

Here's a closer look at this quill and ink bottle tattoo:

Lizzie shared this poem, as well:

Grace

she lives here with me

but she comes & goes as she pleases

never tells me where she’s going

never leaves a note

it’s typical that she’ll come in

just as I’m falling asleep

I catch glimpses of her sometimes

usually when there’s music

we used to be inseparable

I didn’t think she’d ever leave

now, daily happenings of my life

rarely interest her

but sometimes they do

and she’ll spend time with me

when that happens

I remember how good it feels

her company is like an avalanche of

warm towels out of the dryer

I could stay there all day

© 2010 Lizzie Wann

Lizzie Wann started reading at open mics in 1995. She soon became an integral part of the development of the San Diego poetry scene, facilitating workshops at the Writing Center, creating her own readings and producing original shows that featured poets and musicians. She earned a spot on the 1999 Laguna Beach national slam team that competed at the National Poetry Slam in Chicago of that year, and from there, helped make slam poetry become a San Diego fixture. She was on the 2000 San Diego team that went to the West Coast Regionals in Big Sur, served as coach for that same team in 2002, and co-hosted the fledgling San Diego slam, held at the Urban Grind, until 2003. Her work appears on CDs (A Wing & A Prayer and A New Leaf), in chapbooks including Familiars, Naked Wrists, and Complicated Skies and in anthologies including Comstock Review, Incidental Buildings & Accidental Beauty, A Year in Ink, volume 2, So Luminous the Wildflowers, The San Diego Poetry Annual, and Don’t Blame the Ugly Mug.  She also founded the Meeting Grace house concert series which ran from 2000-2008. One of her CD’s can be found at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/lizziewann.

Thanks to Lizzie for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Bold & Beautiful

'Today's offerings plot colour with print '  For the Harpers Bazaar Singapore,  Christina Carey 

Photographed by Simon Upton

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier - at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA)

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk,

 

Les Vierges collection, Apparitions dress Haute couture spring/summer 2007 

First International Multimedia Exhibition on Jean Paul Gaultier Starting at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) on June 17.
Gaultier's extraordinary and creative label, will showcase his most memorable haute couture and ready-to-wear frocks and accessories from 1976 to 2010.  The highly awaited exhibition will celebrate the boldness of a multicultural, avant-garde style.

 Source: Montreal Museum Of Fine Arts

Final Days - Austrian Design Visions in Barcelona

Hurry up, the final countdown to see my exhibition on Austrian Design at the renown design center ADI-FAD in Barcelona is ticking. The show "Surprising Ingenuity" presents more than 30 designoriented companies and designers from Austria, including Swarovski, Bene, MAM, KTM and Red Bull as well as EOOS, Cabiljo, formquadrat, spirit design and Kiska. Without wanting to create an artificial "national" design proposition, there is still some common grounds: an obsession with technical challenges (see engines from AVL), a love for materials (special steel from Böhler and glass works by Lobmeyr) and a reduced, yes even minimal formal language, clear and clean esthetics that is charged with humour, double meaning and emotion. The show is still on until Saturday, 30th of April, 2011 at ADI-FAD at Plaza del Angel in the historic city centre of Barcelona. Opening hours: 11 am - 8pm.

The Tattooed Poets Project: David Jonathan Newman

Today's tattooed poet is David Jonathan Newman, who sent along this photo:

Dave explains:

"The tattoo is fairly literal; the state of Florida is burning, with the words "Til The Bitter End" aside it.  I moved to Miami for 4 years to pursue a relationship, and saw it out to its unfortunate conclusion.  The tattoo is born out of that experience, and I got it to help me put a finishing stamp on what happened there and what brought me back to Long Island.  None of us are perfect, but we can become stronger people if we have reminders of our mistakes and put them to good use to make sure they don't happen again.  This piece, along with most of the work on my body, was done by Chris Koutsis of Da Vinci Tattoo Studio in Wantagh NY.  I told him exactly what I had in mind, and between my ideas and his talents I was very happy with the outcome."

The following is my favorite of the several poems David sent me to choose from:

hello, atmosphere.

I keep the eyes of a rapist in a jar by my bed
walk lightly
for that part of the room is glass
modern-day sorcerer, am I
blueprints and otherworldly photographs in my drawers
beakers and tubes filled with dust
the cold makes it feel like home
and when the mirror talks to me, it only says
"I will wrap you in a sheet before this night is done."
well so says you, my sweet, but look what you've become
all my furniture, ghosts
rooms rife with other lives
no doors
my paintings are stolen from churches and are hanging backwards and are numbered one to infinity.

~ ~ ~

David Jonathan Newman has been a poet and vocalist/lyricist in bands, both on Long Island, NY and in Miami, FL.  He currently is working on a collection of poetry, writes music as a solo artist and has a blog (http://captainselfdestruct.blogspot.com) where he posts both his solid works and stream of consciousness ideas.  He's been winning poetry contests since 6th grade, and the poem above, "Hello, Atmosphere" won a writing contest at the SUNY College Of Old Westbury which was featured in Harmonia, their on-campus writing publication.

Thanks to David for sharing his tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Modern Romance

The Sunday Times Style April 2011

Photographed by: Catherine Servel, Model: Julia Saner

The Tattooed Poets Project: Kimberly Mahler

Today's tattooed poet is Kimberly Mahler, who sent along this tattoo:

Kimberly credits this bright colorful work to artist Erik Rieth, co-owner of Seventh Son Tattoo in San Francisco. The poem below is an unpublished work she is including in a manuscript centered around her raising her 11-year old autistic son, seen in this photo with the tattoo above.

The poem relates to her getting her first tattoo:

Stigmata of Spring

In a room full of men I remove my shirt and lie down.

Feel but don’t meet their gaze.

The needle whirrs a little, a test.

Close my eyes and see mother working at the Singer

December afternoons before bartending nights,

tired of us looking thwarted and poor.

Smell my blood mix with ink and adrenaline.

Arousing to be the object of keen attention.

For hours I am a still nude.

As girls my friends and I would trace letters

on each other’s bare backs with our fingertips.

Excuse to give affection in our parentless homes.

I surrender to the electricity and his tender hands

that sketch and sew an iris and its purple vulva

into my back and blade.  No words. The needle’s hum

is a vow, drowning jerry-rigged lovers and son,

flogging my flaws and scars. To bear the sacred

and taboo: an iris ardent enough to flavor gin.

He cleans and bandages my back like a hurt child.

Instructions, a swirl of pride and empathy,

for now it’s mine to carry, heal, and love.

Eventually, the iris bleeds, crackles, shimmies out nubile,

my stigmata of spring.  It draws the hands of lovers

and my son, who puts his lips to it and whispers “tattoo.”

~ ~ ~

Kimberly included a small photo of the piece in question, as well:

She elaborates:

"The iris was my first tattoo completed in 2007. It was a one session--four hour odyssey of sorts. I had never seen someone get tattooed, and was pondering why Erik was using so much red ink for a purple flower... yep, that was my blood, not ink. Over the years Erik and I developed a friendship and continued work on my shoulder in 2008 and the cherries February 2011.

I know the next one is going to be a large hip/thigh sea dragon piece, but that's a ways off. 

For me to be ready to get a tattoo, three elements have to be in line: my artist Erik has to want and like the idea, I have to be ready (both financially and emotionally) and the time commitment and passion for the design have to be there. When all are in line, it's a magical sort of experience. I give him ideas, he designs the piece and then we get down to work. I couldn't have anyone else do my work now; it just wouldn't be the same. [...] He co-owns a shop in San Francisco that just did a benefit for Japan, raising $7,000. Cool place. http://www.seventhsontattoo.com. Erik and the shop Seven Son Tattoo are both also on Facebook. 

There's definitely a connection between tattooing and writing for me. This is the only poem that I've written that is about tattooing (at least on the surface). However, both writing and getting a tattoo require a leap of sorts: a stepping off of the known. Both require a loss of control which lay the foundation for original art both on the body and the page."

Thanks to Kimberly for sharing her tattoos, poetry and photos with us here on Tattoosday!

Kimberly Mahler’s recent work has appeared in, 5AM, DMQ Review, My Baby Rides the Short Bus anthology, Naugatuck River Review, The International Psychoanalysis Poetry Monday and Cimarron Review.  She recently received a residency at the Ragdale Foundation in Chicago. Kimberly has taught college-level writing and literature in the San Francisco Bay Area for 17 years and is the director of The International Poetry Library of San Francisco.  She lives on the coast, a few miles north Half Moon Bay, CA with her son Harrison.

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Lost in Grandmas Attic

I love to have an attic like this!

Spring’s Bullett Magazine  shows photography by Jeff Bark of Veronika, Bart and Xiao with voluminous ensembles fro  Elie Saab, Jil Sander and Jason Wu.

Sweet desire

Mayara Marchi, Matthias Vriens-McGrath in a romantic silhouette for Glamour Russia.

Couture Eleganza - Kate Moss

Kate Moss and Mert & Marcus team up for May’s 2011 Vogue Paris. Styled by Emmanuelle Alt, with art pieces of Armani Prive, Atelier Versace and Valentino Haute Couture.

Dreamy

Ilse de Boer is swathed in Valentino, Dior and Chanel Haute Couture,  for the May edition of Tatler Russia. Photographed by Bruno Dayan

The Tattooed Poets Project: Christina Continelli

Today's tattoo comes to us from poet Christina Continelli. This is part of the lower half of her arm sleeve:

Christina explains the origin of this piece:

"The tattoo is from the front cover of a vintage Heavy Metal comic book my ex-boyfriend used to have. The sleeve was adapted from the drawing by Avelino Avilia at Spirits in the Flesh Tattoo Studio in San Francisco. I had the work done in 1997. There was no deep meaning behind it. I simply found the original image aesthetically pleasing."

What follows is Christina's poem "Charity, " which, she says, "was supposed to be published in [another magazine] this year, but they fell off the face of the earth." Their loss is our gain, I say, and they haven't responded to her queries about the poem, so this would mark it's first publication, I believe.

Charity

This person who requires

very little of me

wrecks the neighborhood

in spirits and crushed feathers               

I wheedle the ajar door

just give a push

and enjoy the feel of it giving

Let loose on the night

with you clawing behind me

feral, whip-tailed, gentle man

a shriek of rubber on wet pavement

and questions

so many questions

I feel two things:

the smoky grit of the upholstery &

the constellation of insects in my veins

Lust is the arch of the moon

in the stomach of a middle-aged woman

perverse and sterile,

a sprinkling of glass and lacquer

from a childhood memory

of dark sex and rage

I keep hearing you talk to me

It sounds like a sugar cube

muddled in brandy

 ~ ~ ~

Christina Continelli is a poet, fiction writer, and essayist. She cut her poetry teeth in the San Diego spoken word scene. In 2004 she moved to Oakland, California to attend the MFA program at California College of the Arts. Her work has appeared in Goodfoot Magazine, Slice, How2,  and Monday Night Lit.

Thanks to Christina for sharing her poem and tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

~

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.