The Literary Tattoo

Here's an interesting post from Yuppie Punk -- on the new literary genre of tattoos. I find it fascinating that folks would inscribe whole literary passages on their bodies. There's even an invitation to send in a picture of your own literary tattoo. And I am astonished at the range of literary choices...not sure in my 80s if I would feel the same way about a scrap of J.K. Rowling on my chest -- but maybe I could go in for a Flannery O'Connor quote, such as "She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick." The big question is where to put it...

Not so long ago, I taught a high school English class called "Literature and the Visual Arts." One of the units was a look at the tattoo -- as story/text/memoir/visual art inscribed on the body. We studied all manner of tattoos -- from traditional Polynesian, gang and prison tats, Naval history, Yakuza, and those from the current popular culture of folks just wanting to say something about themselves to the viewer. I was greatly helped in this endeavor by a terrific book, Dorothy Parker's Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos, edited by Kim Addonizio and Cheryl Dumesnil, which contains wonderful essays, poetry. and short fiction on tattoos. My favorite tattoo stories here were "Parker's Back," by Flannery O'Connor, and "The Fifteen Dollar Eagle," by Sylvia Plath. (I also gave the students a copy of Junchiro Tanizaki's "The Tattooer," which is an eerie little fantasy story.)

My only warning to the class of all boys was if they got too carried away with the unit and got themselves inked, I'd fail them. I didn't want parents calling me up to complain I'd encouraged the boys! Their response was to lift up their shirt sleeves, t-shirts, and pant legs and reveal a whole art gallery of tattoos.  And every one of them had a story behind them.  My favorite was a beautiful tattoo of Arthur's Excalibur with a dragon wound around it. The student had designed and drawn it himself. He regarded it as a call to honor, a challenge to live in a certain "heroic" fashion.

While we're at it, take a look at Shelley Jackson's fascinating project Skin -- a 2,095 word short story, tattooed one word at a time on as many volunteers. It's a really interesting use of narrative and tattooing -- although, I figure it would have been my luck to get the word "the" ... still, that word alone could have a kind of zen fullness I suppose.

And, if you need more...stop by Literary Ink, a blog devoted to showing off the literary tattoo and a really cool older post from Darren Barefoot's blog. I sure wish these had been around when I was teaching!

Comments

[Elizabeth Genco]

Great post! I have that anthology but I've never read it - I should get it out.

Do you know where I can get a copy of the Tanizaki story?

[Carl V.]

What a fantastic post. I love these kind of posts where line after line reveals more and more stuff that I want to check out. This one will have me busy for hours. I've never gotten a tat myself, mostly because of the same reasons you give regarding the Rowling material...I generally never lose the love of the things I cherish, but I find so many treasures that have various meanings to me that to choose a few to immortalize on my flesh might prove impossible.

That one word tattoo story sounds incredible. I certainly could see myself signing on board to be a part of a chain if, say, Neil Gaiman decided to do that project with Neverwhere or Stardust. Those are a couple examples of books that hold such a high place of honor in my life that I could certainly see getting inked for that cause. It would be such an incredibly interesting bonding experience.

And yet we all do that in a sense with our shared love of literature, etc. Still, that would be quite interesting. Hmmmm.....

[Midori]

Hey Elizabeth....It's in a collection of his short stories titled "Seven Japanese Tales." My guess the library should have it.

[Janet]

Isn't it amazing how socially acceptable tattoos have become! Thanks for the links; I have a literary (debatable LOL) tattoo, which I submitted to two of the sites :-)

[Cabell]

Hey, I surfed here from LJ and thought it was a really cool post--I TA sociology classes and I think it'd be really cool to talk about tattoo in sociological perspective. One of my favorite spec fic novel(ettes) is Connie Willis's Bellweather, from which I learned that Winston Churchill's mother had a tattoo of a snake around her wrist, because it was fashionable when she was a girl and the wrist would be covered by gloves in polite company--basically the late 19th century version of a lower back tat.

Janet's point is one that I often think about--tattooing as a fad seems to go in cycles, such that when my father got one in the 70s all his friends were appalled, saying, "That's so... sixties!" But it's definitely true that tattoos' baseline acceptability, as it were, has gotten a lot higher than it once was, although that may only apply to certain KINDS of tattoos--mine are certainly indistinguishable to the casual observer from typical college/sorority girl tats, and thus probably more acceptable than my friend's tats, which are all very "tattoo culture" tattoos (very cool: lots of detail, color, and shading). And of course placement matters; a tramp stamp is still way more acceptable than something on your face or neck, say.

Carl: I've read that Neil Gaiman has been shown tattoos of the Key to Hell by a number of fans. It's a popular subject, and I think I can see why, although it wouldn't be my first choice.

[Midori]

Cabell: You might be interested in a wonderful little pbs documentary film called "Skin Stories" -- which examines the social history of the tattoo in Polynesian cultures, tracing its migration from Samoa, to New Zealand (Maori) to Hawaii. It's a terrific and informative film, and I would almost bet that a University Library Media center would be bound to have it. But I can at least direct you to the website: http://www.pbs.org/skinstories/culture/index.html