The Tattooed Poets Project: Lea Banks

Today's tattooed poet is Lea Banks.

Lea sent along several photos of her work, so let's not waste any time checking out her ink.

Descriptions from Lea follow each photo.

"Vita Nuova" was the first tattoo celebrating my divorce, my new life. I was deep into Dante, especially the Purgatorio. I had read three translations and was taking a break when someone gave me La Vita Nuova. The thirty poems fascinated me --- they were so personal, an autobiographical narrative in which Dante wove a web of romance and emotion. Such spiritual inspiration was integral at that time! I was interspersing Dante with Emily Dickinson then and I had the same artist at Mom’s Tattoo Studio in Keene, NH do the tattoo on my right shoulder. You know … “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.” I still felt I was contained lightning from the wreckage of my marriage; wanting to tell the truth in my poetry but having a hard time with it. So this was the design I came up with. I’m actually thinking of having the lightning go outside the circle … I am NOT contained anymore!

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant

Emily Dickinson

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Cirrcuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind---

...Done in 2004, [this tattoo] was my version of a design from the Book of Kells, an Irish manuscript containing the Four Gospels. My daughter and I were visiting England and were staying at a B&B in Glastonbury. One day, she decided to climb the green hill of the Tor, crowned with the tower dominating the town and the surrounding landscape. I had to sit it out because my foot was giving me trouble. My foot at that time had undergone four surgeries. I picked up a book showing illustrations from the Book of Kells. I dreamt of this dragonfly tattoo on the plane ride back and took my vision to a tattoo artist at Blackbear Tattoo & Jewelery Company in Brattleboro, VT. I was very pleased with the result: three dragonflies facing different directions signifying healing movement for my foot. Although I had a fifth surgery, I started walking again and even running. I promised Sarah that we’d return and climb the Tor together.

And my personal favorite...

The fourth tattoo on my left bicep, done by Pygmalion’s Tattoo in Greenfield, MA, is a quote by William Carlos Williams, “Nothing whips my blood like verse.” I had it done right before the AWP conference in Chicago and bore it proudly. The whip that winds throughout the quote was a flourish done by the artist. I ran into a friend who was a W.C. Williams scholar and he said he had never heard it attributed it to Williams! I swear it was in a book or on the web and if anyone can tell me different, please do.

Good news, Lea, I found reference to it in The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams (1957).

Please be sure to check out one of Lea's poems over on BillyBlog here.

Lea Banks lives in Western Massachusetts. She is the author of the chapbook All of Me, (Booksmyth Press, 2008). She was a finalist for The Pavel Srut Fellowship in Prague and had two poems nominated for the 2009 Pushcart Prize. Banks is the founder of the nationally-known Collected Poets Series in Shelburne Falls, MA and editor of Oscillation: Poetry in Motion. She was the former poetry editor of The Equinox and editorial assistant for the Marlboro Review. She attended New England College’s MFA program, facilitated stroke survivors’ writing workshops, and is a full-time poet, community organizer, freelance editor and writer. Banks has published in several journals including Poetry Northwest, Slipstream, Diner, and American Poetry Journal. See more here: www.leabanks.com.

Thanks again to Lea for sharing her tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

The Tattooed Poets Project: Eileen Myles - "Poet, Take My Measure"

For this, our penultimate post in the April Tattooed Poets Series, we present a tattoo from Eileen Myles.

Last week Thursday, I met Eileen on my lunch break at a Starbucks in Union Square. For a blog based on meeting people with tattoos, it was refreshing to sit and chat with a poet in person. It was only the second face-to-face meeting with tattooed poets. All others have been based on e-mail submissions.

Eileen is a fixture in the New York poetry scene, and has been a resident here since the early 1970's. She's also the first poet featured who I've actually heard read, so I felt like I was re-meeting with an old acquaintance.

Eileen has three tattoos, and I opted to talk to her about the one on the inside of her left bicep:


Eileen explained that she got this tattoo back in 2001 (before 9/11 - which led to a whole other conversation). The phrase is a quote from Dante's Inferno (translated by Robert Pinsky), the first part of The Divine Comedy.

In the Italian, the lines are:

"Io cominciai: "Poeta che mi guidi,
guarda la mia virtù s'ell' è possente,
prima ch'a l'alto passo tu mi fidi."

Dante Alighieri, Inferno, II. 10-12

Or, as translated by Mr. Pinsky:

"I commenced: "Poet, take my measure now:

Appraise my powers before you trust me to venture

Through that deep passage where you would be my guide."

Robert Pinsky, The Inferno of Dante, II. 9-11

Eileen got this line of poetry tattooed as a signpost for her embarking on a novel called The Inferno: A Poet's Novel.


The lines from the original work by Dante are spoken by Dante to the poet Virgil, checking to see if he can handle the journey on which he is about to embark.

Writing as a woman, she draws a parallel to the inferno of Hell with the life of a female poet.

This tattoo was inked by Stephanie Tamez at Porcupine Tattoo on the Lower East Side. Both Stephanie and Porcupine have moved, Stephanie to New York Adorned, and Porcupine from the Lower East Side to Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Thanks to Eileen for sharing this tattoo with us here at Tattoosday!

Please head over to BillyBlog to see one of her poems here.