Dragon Tattoos 2011

UPDATED! See below....


I've decided to launch this special National Poetry Month Tattoosday feature with the wonderful tattooed feet of Jill Alexander Essbaum, author of several collections of poetry, the most recent being Harlot.

Although this month I will be featuring tattoos on poets, not every tattoo is poetic, in the literal sense. Jill's inked feet are.

Jill met me in the Starbucks at 7 Penn Plaza on a cold day in February, prior to a reading at the KGB Bar later that evening.

She was one of the first poets who signed on to this project, and she allowed me the honor of taking a clearer picture of her tattoos, even though they appeared here, on the Best American Poetry blog, back in May 2008.

Although the concept may be alien to many, students and purveyors of the art of poetry know that a line of poetry can be broken down into metered verse that is identifiable based on the stress and intonation of the syllables.

People may have heard that most of Shakespeare's work is composed, for example, in iambic pentameter. What that means is that each line is comprised of five parts, or "feet," and each foot is made up of an iamb, or two syllables, the first of which is unstressed, followed by the stressed sound.

The name "Marie" is an iamb, for example, as the stress falls on the second syllable. "Mary," on the other hand, has the stress on the first syllable, and is identified as a "trochee".

There are other types of poetic fragments, such as dactylls and anapests, but the iambic and trochaic feet are the most common.

So what does this have to do with Jill's feet? When poets study and scan a line of verse, they mark it up, identifying the stress marks with the accents (or longums), and the unstressed syllables with a symbol known as a brevis.


Jill's feet are literally with the symbols denoting them as trochee (left) and iamb (right). Pure brilliance, in my opinion.

Jill and her friend Jessica came up with this idea last year and gave it significant thought.

As most poets (with notable exceptions, of course) are also teachers, they thought it would be a great visual aid when educating students on scansion.

Jill spent a weekend sketching and drawing the marks, not as easy a task as one would imagine. How to make the marks look like poetic symbols, and not stray ink marks, or even worse, scars, was a part of the process.

She and Jessica mulled the placement on the body: should they go on their wrists? Jill, a professed punster, then had the revelation: iambs and trochees are poetic feet, the tattoos should go on their own feet.

Trochee went on the right side, because it is a progressive, forward-moving beat. Iamb went on the left, as it is a heartbeat.

She and Jessica both got inked in June 2008, shortly before the West Chester Poetry Conference. What better setting to show off fresh poetry tattoos?

Each tattoo took only 15 minutes, and Jessica placed her ink on the sides of her feet, as opposed to the tops like Jill.

I want to thank Jill Alexander Essbaum for helping launch this special feature here on Tattoosday. I invite you to head over here to BillyBlog and check out one of Jill's poems, along with links to more of her work.

WAIT! There's more.....

Here's a photo of the feet of Jill's friend Jessica Piazza:


As noted before, it's the same tattoo, just oriented differently on the feet. Jessica added:

I figured, since it was my idea in the first place, I should be up on this if I can. Too bad we couldn't find a way to get tattoos that symbolize rhyme. I'm more of the meter dork than Jill, which is why I wanted these in the first place. (In all fairness, doing it on our feet was her stroke of genius!)

April is National Poetry Month!

In addition to the "regular" Tattoosday features, every day in April will feature a different poet's tattoo(s).

Poets across America have contributed photos of their tattoos for us to enjoy, with each post linking back to BillyBlog, where one of their poems will be posted on the corresponding day.

Not all the poems are tattoo-related, but many are. Please come back every day in April to see the wide range of poetic tattoos!

cool dragonfly tattoo

Dragonflies typically range between a few inches long up to 7 inches long. The longest species of dragonflies in the world live in Hawaii and can get up to 7 and a ½ inches in length. Dragonflies have two large semi translucent wings that help them fly. They often live anywhere from 6 months all the way up to 7 years which is very old for the insect world.
foot dragonfly tattoos



dragonfly tattoo gallery

dragonfly tattoos designs

Dragonfly Tattoo Designs

For those of you visiting Tattoosday for the first time, I refer to posts based on reader submissions as Tattoorism. That is, tattoos from out of town visiting us here in the blogosphere.

There was a pleasant surprise in my in box this morning:


Skeptics may say, "What's the big deal? It's just a fleur-de-lis!" But we here at Tattoosday don't think that way. Tattoos aren't just designs inked into the flesh, they generally carry significance that transcend the skin and touch the soul.

And I'm always interested when someone I've never met takes the time and energy to send me a photo and elaborate on their tattoo. Christina's tattoo, above, is a case in point.

I'll let Christina explain her one and only tattoo:

"Tom Berg at SoCal Tattoo in San Pedro, CA did my ink. He designed the elaborate tattoo for the main character in the tv show "Prison Break," [see below] among others.

My husband works for the show and knows Tom, so he was able to get an appointment in two weeks instead of the one-year waiting list that he normally has. So we had that going for us, which is good.

People ask me all the time if the 4-inch fleur de lys between my shoulders means that I really really love the [New Orleans] Saints, or the Boy Scouts... Nope. The fleur has been popping up in my life for years. I wore a ring with a fleur on it, identical to a ring that my best friend in high school wore, which we got on my first road trip. That relationship was instrumental in breaking me out of my shell in school. I wore the fleur on a necklace through college. Then, I spent a year living in Florence, Italy. The symbol of the city is the Florentine "gigli," or lily, the Italian version of the fleur de lys.

One of my housemates said something that stuck with me. "Florence doesn't change you, it only makes you more like you are."

For me, my tattoo is a symbol of my journey toward becoming who I am supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to do, living how I am supposed to live. I got it two months after I married the love of my life, my best friend since I was 12."

Last May, I spent a few minutes on the N train talking to a woman named Patricia who had a cool tattoo on the back of her neck (see the post here). She disembarked before I was able to get all the facts on the piece, but I still posted the blurry photo.

No, I didn't run into her again. But I did meet Jorge, who had a similar piece on his inner left forearm based on the fertility goddess Atabey, or Attabeira, the goddess of fertility in the Taíno culture of Puerto Rico and other parts of the Caribbean:



The piece runs the length of his inner arm, and took 2 sittings and 6 hours to complete.

He had this tattooed by Byron Velasquez, then at Rising Dragon Tattoos in 2001. Byron now tattoos out of Abstract Black NYC. Jorge chose this image as an icon to represent his Puerto Rican heritage. This is one of his three tattoos.

Check out other work from Rising Dragon previously appearing on Tattoosday here.

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

Wings tattoo designs Cool Back tattoo for women


woman with back tattoo on the sand

I ran into Anthony after work while passing through the Amtrak section of Penn Station.

He was in town to perform in Brooklyn and was waiting for his ride. He performs under the name "Xrin Arms," which he pronounced as "Your-in-arms". He's a techno punk musician currently on tour. Here's the flier for the gig he was playing that night:


He had an unusual series of tattoos which he allowed me to photograph, after he explained them to me.

The tattoos cover a significant part of his upper right arm, as well as one side of his forearm.

First and foremost, as a writer, he had his pen inked on his arm.


He always uses a Pilot Precise V5, he said,

and he produced one to show me, holding it up to the piece to show me that it was tattooed to scale.

The next element of his inked arm is a legion of sperm directed at his elbow. Some of the sperm are traveling from the pen, representing the knowledge that flows from the written word.

At the center of the elbow is a moth in a circle. He said that it represents a "moth in a beehive". When I questioned that image, he acknowledged that that was how he feels a lot of the time.


If you picture a moth in a beehive, you envision many things: solitude and violence. Of beauty and alienation. The sperm heading toward this image reinforce that the creative experience is a birthing process fraught with danger.

Lastly, on the back of the bicep, is an owl with its wings outstretched.


The owl represents to him that he is noctural, and stays up all night.

He has 2 other tattoos but we stuck with these because they played off one another.

They were tattooed by Chris Bragg when he was working out of Hammer's Tattoo & Body Piercing in Canton, Ohio.

Please check out Xrin Arms myspace page here. There's also a cool interview with Anthony over on the blog Digital Liver here.

Thanks again to for sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday.

As an added extra, here's a video of Xrin Arms song "Feather Mask":

Sometimes the hand of Fate guides the Tattoosday blogger as he journeys through the streets of New York. At lunch, a change in traffic signals prompted me to veer East, sending me into a bank vestibule that I rarely, if ever, frequent.

I could have ventured into a dozen branches or drug stores to do my business but this is where I ended up on a day that started frigid, but was still in the blustery high 30's at noon.

I finished my ATM transaction and exited, not even glancing at the two people to my left, jacketed and weighed down with large backpacks.

I hit the sidewalk, peering into a side window bordering the vestibule. I did a quick about-face and headed back into the bank. Despite the coats, hats, and long pants, I could tell the two men I had been next to had significant ink.

And, once back inside, I was delighted to find them both willing to talk tattoos.

Both men were visiting tourists from England. The first one I spoke to was Jethro "Jeff" Wood, a tattoo artist who works out of The SkynYard in Southend-on-Sea (in Essex County, 40 miles East of central London). I spoke to Jeff first, while his friend Sam worked the ATM machine.

Jeff estimates that his body is 30% covered in ink. He offered up this neck piece:


I apologize for the angle, but one can see that it's a pretty nice grim reaper tattoo. You also get a view of the small skull and crossbones behind Jeff's left ear.

He had been hanging out with another tattooer and "got drunk and tatted my neck". The artist was Dan Sims at Life Family Tattoo in Sevenoaks, Kent, in England.

Not to be outdone, Jeff's friend Sam had an amazing pirate-themed neck piece, with a "Do or Die" banner, courtesy of Jeff:


The two visitors seemed to enjoy showing their tattoos and were soon rolling up pant legs to show me what Jeff's apprentice, Charlie, had tattooed on the back of Sam's left leg:


That is the mask of The Ultimate Warrior.




Sam also showed me some work on his right leg, also credited to Charlie, featuring a mythical creature, "The Rare Horned Dolfin," stuffed and mounted by a taxidermist:


Granted, it's a funny tattoo, but I believe there was an element I was missing (perhaps a key facet of an inside joke). Sam and Jeff laughed heartily while showing me the piece, along with another gag tattoo on Sam's right calf, a D.L.T. sandwich:


In a DLT sandwich, the bacon is replaced by, you guessed it, tiny smiling dolphins!


I also get a kick out of the "I love frogs" scribbled above the D.L.T. Note the S is reversed. Sam indicated that Charlie had done some of these, but he had also inked a few himself, on an experimental basis.

Both men also have knuckle tattoos, and pictures of their knuckle are posted here at KnuckleTattoos.com.

Thanks again to Sam and Jeff for sharing their tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Butterfly Tattoo Designs:
Tattoos are one of the most popular forms of body arts.Have cool tattoos are trendy enough.
Most of women love butterfly tattoos.
Then, what the meaning of the butterfly tattoo?The butterfly tattoo designs have a variety of meaning. There are some who say that it represents rebirth or transformation. This is solely based upon the fact that a caterpillar changes into a beautiful butterfly hence the tattoo itself signifies the same. It can also symbolize freedom. For some, it’s simply a beautiful pattern, which is delicate, colorful and very pretty!

Amongst the various butterfly tattoo designs, women love flower butterfly tattoos. The combination of this pattern looks simply beautiful! Celtic butterfly tattoos are in demand as well. The Celtic folks lived amidst nature and the butterfly meant rebirth to this particular group. Tribal tattoo designs are also in vogue. A tribal butterfly tattoo has all the beauty of any other tattoo and can be equally stylish to sport! A tribal butterfly tattoo combines all the elements of tribal design but are to be done in black. The lines and forms are bolder in this case as compared to the modern tattoo butterfly art. Here are some butterfly tattoo pictures for you.
pictures of Butterfly Tattoo Designs
Butterfly Tattoo

Butterfly Tattoos

Butterfly Tattoo Designs pictures

Butterfly Tattoo Designs