The Tattooed Poets Project: Noemi Soto

Today's tattooed poet is Noemi Soto, who sent us this lovely, colorful photo of her tattoo:

Photo Courtesy of Noemi Soto

Noemi explains:

"I designed the tattoo for myself during a pretty rough period after a major breakup about 6 years ago. I wanted it to represent the heartbreak that I was feeling at the time but still hold hope for the future. The artist who tattooed me was Danielle Distefano while she was working out of Dare DevilTattoo on Ludlow Street in Manhattan."

Danielle is currently tattooing out of Only You Tattoo in Atlanta, Georgia.

Noemi offers up this poem:

The Beginning is the End is the Beginning

Back when I was younger
My mother tried to protect my heart
Always telling me to never bare my insides for a man
to never let him in fully so that he may devour what I hold dear
to not let a man do to me what had been done to her

Her backbone used to show signs of strength but now lacks the stamina to withstand the battle
She was once a woman so strong in her will
but with every man in her life taking pieces of her for themselves
she has now become a mere shell of herself
The stink of her childhood still lingering in her hair

I was witness to the tug of war my father and her used to play
saw the push and pull of their hearts
there was nothing unconditional about their love
not even when it came to me
there is nothing sentimental and heartfelt in the throwing of pots, pans and fists
“I love you” cannot be said through the gnashing of one’s teeth

So when it came time for my will to be tested
I acted on what I saw and not what I was told
What I was shown was that to be a woman meant having to bend your spine so far back to please your man that you broke yourself in two
To stretch those parts of yourself out so that you may give him the smoothest of surfaces in which he may stomp your hopes and dreams into
To ignore his faults and accept them as your own
How dare you even think otherwise?

I was taught that… to be a woman meant having to pick up the pieces that were left behind from his war path
making sure only your feet bled in the process to save his
Being a woman always meant never asking any questions
to let him roam and if he comes back … well… what more do you want?

I followed all of these lessons very carefully
made sure I folded the laundry just right
had dinner ready when he came home
and always made sure to give him his space
only to find myself face down on the floor, arms pinned behind me, with all of his weight pressing his right knee into my back
I waited until he left the room to get up

I stayed in silence
still willing to be the woman behind the man
Still willing to be the glass which he slammed his fist against
shattering any sense of self worth I had just for him
I began to wonder if this really was what it meant to be a woman or just the kind of woman who was so lost in herself that she was willing to let a man tell her what she should be
and if it did …. Then I had to learn to become my own woman
and I couldn’t do that by being underneath his thumb

So I bent back each one of his fingers till they snapped at the joints to show him how serious I was
It was the only way to break free
and while he screamed in pain and cursed me for having been born

I cleared a way for myself through the broken home which I was sure would last forever
letting him know that he no longer had a hold on me

~~~

Noemi Soto is a Brooklyn, New York native who was born and raised in Coney Island and is a recent transplant to Queens. Her poetry has been featured in a variety of publications such as The Acentos Review, The Literary Burlesque, LitUp Magazine & South Jersey Underground. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and is currently working on her first book. You can read more of her work  at her website here.

Thanks to Noemi for her contribution to the Tattooed Poets Project!

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.

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Wilson's Heart Reminds Him of a Painful Loss

Today I'm posting two hearts, spotted on the same day, from two different people in two different places.

First up is Wilson, who has a lot of ink, most of which is tribal-style.

He decided to share, however, this deeply personal piece on his left bicep:


Wilson had this inked after his wife left him and took his kids. It was immensely painful and he found that this tattoo, a heart with a knife through it, helped him heal a lot.

In fact, he said, that six months after she left him, Wilson's wife called him back and made overtures toward reconciliation. He says he looked at his tattoo, a symbol of the pain he had endured, and told her no.

He is hazy about the place where he had this done, but believes it was at a shop in Atlantic City.

Thanks to Wilson for sharing his tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

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Jessica's Heart Flutters With Birds

Above, I mentioned a man with a heart on his outer left bicep.

Later that same day, I met Jessica on the R train.

A California transplant now living in Brooklyn, she had this beautiful heart done at the Philadelphia Tattoo Arts Convention:


It's your standard heart on the sleeve motif, but this piece is a little more biologically correct and features two small birds holding a ribbon up around it.

Jessica wasn't sure of the name of the artist on whom this work was based, but the end result was a tattoo that recalled the original piece, although not copying it.

This tattoo was inked in a little over an hour at the convention by Rick Lohm at Scarab Body Art Studio in Syracuse, New York.

Work from Scarab has appeared previously here on Tattoosday.

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

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Two for Tattoosday: Two Sisters Share Their Awesome Ink

Jenni estimates she is 35-40% covered in tattoos. When I stopped her and her sister Kailla, I was interested in seeing what she would offer up to Tattoosday readers.

Even though we can't see it in it's entirety, she offered up this chest piece:


Jenni, who was visiting from Philadelphia, says the tattoo honors her mother and father, whose names, Bogda and Adam , are enclosed in the heart at the center of the piece.

When I asked her what he folks thought of this, she smiled and said that they were both "flattered and horrified". Yet, they recognized that the sentiment behind the tattoo was sweet.


The piece which extends out and over the shoulders, was tattooed by Don McDonald at Bodyworks Tattoo Studio in Pittsburgh. She estimates that the whole thing took about seven hours in two sittings.

When I finished talking to Jenni, I turned to Kailla and asked if she was interested in sharing, as well. Unlike her sister, she didn't appear to be tattooed much. In fact, I'd estimate all I could see was about this much of her left bicep:


Much to my delight, she peeled her shirt back to reveal this astonishing tattoo:


Still only about two weeks old, this amazing tattoo was also done by Don McDonald in Pittsburgh (where Kailla resides).

She says the center of the tattoo is a Polish falcon which honors her family ancestry in Eastern Europe.

The whole piece took ten hours, which is evidenced by the scale and detail of this wonderful tattoo.


Both Kailla and Jenni were kind enough to take the time to chat with me about their beautiful body art, and I thank them for their contributions here on Tattoosday!

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Tattoosday Boxcars: A Leonine Tattoo and Wearing One's Heart on One's Sleeve

I met Jeff and Jeanie in Penn Station as they were about to board an Amtrak train out of the city.

I've been trying to come up with clever terms for different inkspotting phenomenon, basically creating my own lexicon.

I'll call Jeff and Jeanie "boxcars". Meaning, I approached the two of them and gambled, asking them both to participate, and they came through. Like rolling two sixes on the dice (also known as boxcars). I would even venture to call them "blind boxcars", because I could only make out fragments of their ink, but they still shared.

Jeff went first, displaying this leonine figure on his left bicep:


It's a nod to his astrological sign, Leo, and was also selected for its nod to Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast).

Jeanie shared her tattoo below:


This piece literally has her wearing her heart on her sleeve and is inspired by Mexican art. The tattoo was completed by a friend of Jeanine's named John Flack.

I would have obtained more detail, but the couple had to board their train.

Thank you to Jeanine and Jeff for sharing their tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

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Ashley's Trio of Tattoos

I've always said that Tattoosday is 50% about the tattoos and 50% about finding them. But once in a while, tattoos just present themselves and I can't contain myself.

Ashley is a case in point. She was at the laundromat the same time as I was, and she had two small tattoos inked on her feet. Out on the street, I likely would have let her walk by without stopping her, but there, as we stood around waiting for clothes to wash and dry themselves, it struck me as negligent NOT to ask her about the tattoos.

Ashley has three tattoos in all. The first one I noticed was this peace sign on her right foot:


It's a popular symbol, of course, and not simply because of what it stands for, but for the aesthetics of the shape.

Similarly, she has a small heart on her left foot:


What's interesting to me about this simple tattoo is the duality of the colors. Ashley says that the colors represent the "two polar sides" of her personality - the "mellow" green and the more exciting pink.

Both tattoos were done in the same sitting by an artist named Taz.

Ashley has a third tattoo, her first, which she was kind enough to share with me:


This star was inked by Joe at Studio Enigma (whose work has appeared previously on Tattoosday here). This is purely decorative, at the base of her neck, and she had it done with a close friend, who had the same design inked on her shoulder blade.

Thanks to Ashley for sharing these tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

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Matt Wears His Heart (of Bacon) on His Sleeve

I first met Matt a year or so ago when he and his wife Allison opened the gourmet grocery Robicelli's in our neighborhood of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn (there's more on Robicelli's here).

It was only recently, however, when I popped in to pick up some of their incredible gourmet cupcakes (the "Irish Car Bomb" is my favorite), when I spotted this amazing tattoo on the inside of his left forearm:


So it makes sense that a chef and a businessman running a gourmet grocery might have a food-themed tattoo, but what's up with this one?

Matt explained that, well, he's a chef, and he loves bacon, and several years ago when he was prepping for an event he was catering, he and a colleague were wrapping rabbit hearts with bacon. He remarked that he ought to get a bacon heart tattoo and his friend challenged him, laughing "You'll never do it!" That was just the incentive Matt needed, and he went with the idea
to Nacho at Studio Enigma in Brooklyn.

It was done all in free-hand and Matt hopes that some day it will be the cornerstone of a food-themed sleeve.

Thanks again to Matt for sharing his bacon heart with us here on Tattoosday! If you're ever in Bay Ridge and have a hankering for fine foods (especially their amazing weekend cupcakes), stop by Robicelli's ( 8511 3rd Avenue) and perhaps you'll catch a glimpse of this great tattoo!

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The Tattooed Poets Project: Raffaella Ciavatta's Trio of Amazing Tattoos

Today's tattoos were submitted by Brazilian-born, New York-based poet Raffaella Ciavatta. She heard about the Tattooed Poet's Project earlier this month from Jackie Sheeler at a local reading. Jackie's tattoos were featured earlier this month here.

Raffaela sent three photos:


Raffaela says that this is "my own design mixing a Chinese dragon, representing strength, and the lizard, for the soul's search of awareness, so that it could protect me and guide me through the eternal pursuit of knowledge."

This piece on the lower left side of her back/hip was her first tattoo, done at Studio Tat 2 in Brazil.

Next is a piece on the right side of her chest, near the collar bone:



The "mater" is the Latin word for mother who, Raffaella proclaims is "done for the most important person to me in this world, my mother, father, best friend!" This piece was inked at Fabio Tattoo, also in Brazil.

And finally, this last tattoo, which you get a small glimpse of in the first picture above, is just breath-taking:

These are her angel wings, "done to achieve my dream of reaching New York." She adds, "I definitely flew from Brazil to NY." They were tattooed over six months. The tattoo was started by Eric Codo ("just the outline...he had to move to Rio de Janeiro) at Steel Star Supply in Sao Paulo and was finished by the "Amazing Fabio Renato".

Head over to BillyBlog to read one of Raffaella's poems.

Thanks to Raffaella for sharing her amazing work with us here at Tattoosday!

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The Tattooed Poets Project: Malaika King Albrecht Shares Her "Unambitious," Yet Meaningful, Tattoo

Today's tattoo was submitted by Malaika King Albrecht:


I contacted Malaika on Facebook when I saw her profile photo, and that she had a visible tattoo. She was kind enough to not only accept my friend request, but also to submit the photo above, along with one of her poems, over on BillyBlog.

Malaika filled me in on this piece:

I may have gotten this tattoo, my second one, at Shaw’s [Tattoo Studio] where I got my first tattoo. I was probably on Westheimer Blvd., was definitely in Houston sometime in the mid-80’s and was most likely in the good company of a guy named Nicki Sicki. The image is of a person meditating with wings and a heart, and is borrowed from Ram Dass’ book Be Here Now. The sideways 8 represents sitting in lotus position and is also the symbol of infinity. Though the heart has lost its red color, and the tattoo is an admittedly unambitious one, the image still resonates with me.

I love Malaika's modesty about the tattoo. Admittedly, it is not "spectacular," but tattoos do not have to be huge, multi-colored affairs in order to have significance for those that have them.

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

Please visit BillyBlog to read one of her poems here.

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Happy Valentine's from Tattoosday!

Lacking any new material for this holiday o' love, I'm re-posting an old favorite that seems to be in the theme. Well, at least there's a heart in it.

I just love the way, in this photo, that Cait's hand is positioned as she is pulling her blouse back to reveal the whole tattoo...

"I asked her if she'd be willing to share, and she did. She peeled back a little of her top to reveal this beautiful piece on the top left side of her chest:


Cait and her friend Michelle have birthdays two days apart. When they turned 18, they took a design that Michelle had crafted to Da Vinci Tattoo Studio in Wantagh, New York. The artist she remembered as "Yoshi" inked matching pieces for the two.


Cait says the heart that encases the colorful stars represents their friendship, and serves to remind them of the bond. In the event that life ever separates them, the tattoos will link them, no matter where they are.

Work from Da Vinci Tattoo Studio has appeared on Tattoosday before here.

Thanks to Cait for sharing her ink with us here at Tattoosday!

The original post is here.

Here's hoping the day is everything you expect it to be!

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Vicki's Shamrock Tattoo

Earlier this month, I posted this tattoo which was a tribute to Olivia Rose, a new daughter born to Vicki. I mentioned in the post that it was Vicki's tattoo below her neck which first grabbed my attention, but that Vicki offered up her newer piece for us here at Tattoosday.

Vicki has recently sent me a photo of the original tattoo I saw on her. It's a nice, simple shamrock and hearts.

This, like the other piece, was inked at True Blue Tattoo in Queens. Alex McWatt is the artist.

Vicki writes: "I got the design for a few reasons. First of all, I am Irish and I wanted to get something to celebrate my heritage without getting a flag tattoo. Second, my boyfriend, the love of my life, is 100% Irish, and I wanted to get a tattoo to symbolism me and him - that is what the two hearts are for. I chose to get it on the back of my neck so it would be out there for the world to see."

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

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Michele's First Tattoo: Beautiful Can Also Be Dangerous

I met Michele in the middle of the day last Wednesday. I was riding my bike on a vacation day and she was sitting on the Shore Promenade while on a lunch break.

The tattoo above is small, but I liked how Michele described it. The piece is about sixteen years old and was done by an artist named Vinnie.


This was the first of her three tattoos and she picked it off of the flash art on the walls in his shop.

Michele liked the size of the piece, thought the rose was beautiful, and dagger through the heart next to the rose sends a message. In her words, "if you get too close to something beautiful, you might get hurt."

Thanks to Michele for sharing her first tattoo here with us on Tattoosday!

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Ashley Displays the Mark of Friendship

I met Ashley when I approached Becky (her post here) about her work. Unlike Becky, who is inked 27 times, Ashley has just four pieces, none of which are immediately visible.

However, after talking with her friend Becky, I queried Ashley about any tattoos she might have, she offered up the small piece above.

Ashley's friend Turner Walker is an aspiring tattooist who is learning the art form. Turner, with whom she had gone to school, asked if he could practice on her and, when she assented, he placed two small red hearts on either side of the middle finger on her right hand.

She laughs about it, thinking it's cool that wherever she goes, she'll have a piece of him inked on her body.

Personally, I like the fact that she has a couple of hearts inked on a finger that is often misused by humans to make an unpleasant gesture.

Thanks to Ashley for sharing her small heart with us. True friends let their friends practice tattooing them!

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Two Tattoos, Starry Reminders of Youth and Friendship

I met Randy in front of Penn Station, where he was talking with Cait.

I spotted what appeared to be a Chilly Willy tatoo on his inner right forearm, but he dismissed it as a youthful mistake that he eventually wanted to get covered up.

He did offer me the three stars on his right hand as a tattoo that had much more meaning:


He got the three stars to remind him of youth and romance, an allusion to how kids tend to draw on themselves, often scribbling stars. The piece was inked at Lotus Tattoo in Sayville, N.Y.

He mentioned to me that Cait also had a tattoo. I asked her if she'd be willing to share, and she did. She peeled back a little of her top to reveal this beautiful piece on the top left side of her chest:
Cait and her friend Michelle have birthdays two days apart. When they turned 18, they took a design that Michelle had crafted to Da Vinci Tattoo Studio in Wantagh, New York. The artist she remembered as "Yoshi" inked matching pieces for the two.


Cait says the heart that encases the colorful stars represents their friendship, and serves to remind them of the bond. In the event that life ever separates them, the tattoos will link them, no matter where they are.

Work from Da Vinci Tattoo Studio has appeared on Tattoosday before here.
Thanks to Randy and Cait for sharing their ink with us here at Tattoosday!

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Erin's Tattoos for Loss and Healing

Back in Tattoosday's infancy, when it was a weekly feature over at BillyBlog, I neglected to ask someone about their tattoo, and it had continued to nag at me, months later.

I had just come back from taking pictures of James's tattoos (here) and stopped in Rite-Aid for something. Ahead of me in line, a woman had an incredible black and grey piece that was complex and, I was sure, had great meaning.

But I had yet to successfully get pictures from someone that I didn't know previously, although I did manage to break the barrier and compliment her on the work, which to me was a small
victory in itself.

So, last Saturday, I was walking down my block when two women passed me and there it was, there she was, and this time, after 9 months of talking ink with complete strangers, I had no problem asking what this was all about.

Erin even vaguely remembered my compliment in Rite-Aid from the summer before. Her right biceps actually is comprised of three pieces, all of them inked by Todd at Hardwire Tattoo in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Her first element is the phrase "Until we meet again".
Erin's father passed away when she was very young, and the quote is a phrase that resonated with her in an obituary written for her father by one of his close friends.

Words can be healing, across the years, and the phrase is a powerful reminder of her father's memory.

The piece was enhanced by the tree and, an element that I didn't notice when I first saw the tattoo months ago, the dandelion, which is on the inner part of the arm.


Erin loved the tree design and had it placed in a way that the "until we meet again" phrase runs in the foreground, creating the impression that they were part of the same design.

The dandelion is a flower that is often associated with childhood. What kid hasn't made a wish and blown on a recently-plucked dandelion to watch the seeds scattered by the breeze? The dandelion on the inner arm wraps around and the seeds blowing away actually drift into the other element of the tattoo, making the two pieces become one.

The part that, I believe, binds the whole tattoo together is the piece above the tree:

This is a depiction of a heart that has been ripped in two. However, it has been mended, held together by thread that binds it. Note the needle still sticking out of it in the upper left corner of the heart.

The image is inspired by the fact that Erin's mother was a seamstress by trade, and despite the tragedy of her husband's (Erin's father) death, she kept the family together. It's a nice tribute and a fitting homage to the woman who held the family together, in the face of great loss.

Many thanks to Erin for sharing her amazing tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

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Tattoos I Know: Erika's Ink (Part 2)

This is part 2 of Erika's ink (part 1 here). Erika has a lot of tattoos, so I had to split the post, since she generously offered them all up for Tattoosday.

Tattoo #7 is actually #7 and #13, as one element was added eight years later. We'll focus on #7 now, which is the flower on the inside of Erika's left wrist.


Erika, in her own words, went through what she calls "an experimental phase" in her life, during which she began dating women. To show her "true colors" at the time, Erika and her cousin, who was also dating women, got the same tattoo...a rainbow-petaled flower above a doubled female sign, to proudly display her alternate lifestyle.

The flower was inked at a shop called Murda Ink Tattoos, in Jamaica, New York.

Flashing forward to the Summer of 2006, Erika was having a cover-up done (see #8 and #12 below) and asked, as an afterthought, if the artist could cover the interlocking female insignia, as well. Erika's fiancee (now husband) didn't like the "advertisement" of the prior lifestyle. The leaves were added under the flower at Triple X Tattoo, now known as Red Rocket Tattoo on 46 West 36th Street in Manhattan.

Tattoo #8 was a boyfriend's name, inked along the front of her waistline, by Joe at Between the Lines. This name was covered up (see below) in 2007.

Tattoo #9 is a Chinese dragon on the middle of Erika's back. Her dress at the company holiday party afforded me a great opportunity to photograph it without her having to remove any clothing.


Joe at Between the Lines did this piece as well. Erika recalls just hanging out at Joe's shop and talking about how she wanted a big piece for her back. Joe was happy to oblige, and drew up the dragon free-hand.

She said that it took about ten weeks and three sittings to complete. The reason for the multiple sittings? The pain. To quote Erika, "I'll never forget how much that shit hurt."

The other elements of the tattoo are the kanji. When I asked Erika what they meant, she said, "Well, one of them is supposed to mean "to love life":

and the other is supposed to acknowledge that former lifestyle and say "to love women":

Erika, when she told me this, seemed to have her doubts, and was receptive to the idea of me looking into their actual meanings.

I went to my resident Chinese language expert, who quickly debunked their meanings. They do not mean what she thinks they do, he said. Because they don't make much sense. The best translation he could give was "good girl" for the top and "born/appear" for the bottom.

If you look at the kanji for "love,"


you'll notice it's not similar to any of the kanji in the tattoo.

Tattoo #10 may look familiar, as it is the first one I noticed on Erika which started out this whole business. Despite "never being crazy about tattoos on arms," Erika inked this in the Summer of 2003, while on a date. She doesn't recall the name of the shop, just that it was somewhere in the East Village. Of course, the East Village is likely one of the few places in the U.S. where tattoo/piercing shops outnumber Starbucks.

So, Erika still had a soft spot for little girl things, unicorns and fairies and such, so she designed this fairy, using several different drawings to create a composite she liked.


She designed the wings and changed the outfit color to red. Why red? As a tribute to her younger brother, who was in the Bloods, a gang whose colors are red. I, for one, appreciate the irony of a pixie sporting gang colors. This is definitely a tough, New York fairy, not some wimpy woodland nymph!

Tattoo #11 also has a pretty interesting story. Erika got married in the Spring of 2007, but she met Lance, her husband-to-be in February 2004.

They dated for a couple of weeks, but she knew he was still dating another woman. Erika thought that this other woman, who had been seeing the guy first, was going to be a problem and that, as long as she was still in the picture, their relationship wouldn't go anywhere.

Erika made a conscious decision to "steal him away" once and for all. Because he had kids from a previous relationship, she plotted to surprise him on Father's Day with a surprise trip to Florida. He had never been to South Beach in Miami and she wanted him to experience it. And so she did.

The day before they were set to return to New York, they were walking around South Beach and they stumbled upon a tattoo shop. Lance already had one small tattoo with some kanji, so Erika suggested that he go in and get a new one. The subject of tattoos had come up before (how could it not when you already had 10 pieces?), so they went in and he got a new piece on his
arm, a huge lion with a crown, representing his last name in Hindi.

It's incredibly hard to be an inked person and watch someone get a tattoo and not want one for oneself. Therefore, Erika found a piece on the wall that she liked and had it done on her back, below the bluebird, above the dragon.


Sorry, the name of the shop and the artist are not recalled.

Tattoo #12 came in the early Summer of 2006, around late June/early July. She and Lance were engaged, and she wanted to cover up the name of an ex-boyfriend tattooed across her lower abdomen.

A co-worker recommended Red Rocket Tattoo, and it was there that she had this lotus inked on her waistline:


Yep, no name anymore!

Now, for some disclosure. Erika is the first Inked Person to let me photograph her stomach for Tattoosday. I did have a mutual friend present, Sephora, who was the first person who hosted a tattoo here.

Erika wanted the lotus for two reasons. In addition to wanting something pretty to cover up an old name, she had heard that the lotus was a symbol of fertility, and she hopes to have kids some day. She hopes the lotus will be lend good luck for future procreative purposes.


There are over one hundred various types of lotus, so I can't pinpoint the exact one this is modeled after.

Once this cover-up was done, Erika asked for the leaves on the flower mentioned above to cover up the double female insignia.

Well. a hearty thanks to Erika for her participation here! She definitely holds the record for most tattoos offered up to the Tattoosday masses. Her ink is closing out the year for Tattoosday. Here's hoping that her lotus will spawn a healthy blossoming of tattoo posts here in 2008!

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