Friday, April 13, 2018

Two Tattoos (and a Poem) from Kat Finch (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Our next tattooed poet is Kat Finch, who shared two pieces with us. First is her tattoo on the front of her arm:


Kat tells us:
"I got my west coast kaleidoscope from Tara Johnston (@taraosprey) at Osprey Tattoo (@ospreytattoo)  at AWP in 2014 while I was back home visiting Seattle. I got it with the poet Jess Poli, almost on a whim. I literally didn't see the tattoo until the morning of, and while the design wasn't able to fit in my original spot (on my elbow) I loved it too much to compromise. Getting into grad school was the first time I'd lived outside of Washington state for longer than six months, so I needed something from home to always carry with me. I don't know what it is, but the mountains and pine and fir have always just been a comfort-- all that green, all that protection. I get to carry home with me, no matter where I go. And when people ask me about it, I can name all the mountains in the region, until I run out of mountains or memory."
Then, there's this cool tattoo, too:


She notes that
"My little tiger family was illustrated by Jen Collins, and when I got her permission I took the design over to Spiral Tattoo in Ann Arbor. I just needed a tattoo, and a change, and something happy. I was in the process of losing a close friend, and I was letting this break up of sorts destroy me. Sometimes I tell people that two of the tigers are my closest friends, and that I'm the little one. Sometimes I say a lot of things. I just really love them. This tattoo really was more of a whim, as soon as I got permission from the artist, I was in the parlor!"
Kat included the following poem for her post:

+ in Dream

+ in dream          + in dream we wind-
swept as always in + in dream the missing     was
     not absent          not stone walking     amidst ourselves
ourselves + one     another the howling silent
makes us kindred          spirits nothing makes us
     kindred spirits     spirits kindred + dreams walking out
nothing makes the golem         + in dream my dream          missing
became to mean          to go to     go + release     wrong
     in a changed manner          become regret + in dream
regret begets the changeling          the fortification of
wind to scream          phantom the golem the fact     in io-
     dine     remember the     night     + dark the
mare the walking the dream          walking dream is paramount is king
is the thaw come kith + kith          + night + kin-
     dred spirits     the mud is sewn          a being without
fact     a being a fact the apart          the limb the mouth of + wind
without     the limb to you     + you are not listening with
     out + you will always     will be phantom will always scream
will always will     + in dream you          have not been known
to go missing to go     but not known          not known your limb is
     to have been killed or killed          or captured     legacy +
in dream     not present     after a battle     this mouth a
shapeless form          from shape the mud the limb     it
     to it i it we     it the it of it     the golem the wind the limb
of it become of it       a battle spirit spirit + you the walk
the dream say     mare say night say mare-night saw it
     it waits waited          out of me + we +     one
another golem limb          not the thing to phantom you     are
you + you are you     are always are always out of          limbed
     + in dream + in waking          walking the silence
cannot reach     reach out to out          + in dream the phantom a being
without reach without          absence without     king + kith
     absence          alack     erode to get          to get to get what one
wants          + in dream + in dream     to kin meant to legacy
the lost to     reach + in spirit on the miss + in dream a lost
     is spirit to limb to phantom     absence     miss the lack          to kin
the lack          lacking to lack + mud to dream + you     a mud is
we     we must we must concur we     must scream lost + miss
     + in + wake

~ ~ ~

Kat Finch is a letterpress printer living and working in Ann Arbor. Currently she works as the education coordinator at SCRAP Box, a creative reuse center. Her work is forthcoming in The Southern Indiana Review, and may also be found in The Black Warrior Review, Bone Bouquet, Hobart, The Journal, and elsewhere. She has a little orange cat and a little orange bike, even though orange is not her favorite color. You can follow her art/poetry/cat on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/thekatticus/ and look for updates on her here: https://finchkat.wordpress.com/ also, Tumblr: http://decemberfinch.tumblr.com/ 

Thanks to Kat for sharing her tattoos and poetry with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2018 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

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