Matthew Guenette on the Tattooed Poets Project

Our next tattooed poet is Matthew Guenette:

Matthew sent me a few photos and I selected this one because, he explained:

"...THAT tattoo was given to me by the incredible poet (and tattoo artist) Ruth Awad. I was in Carbondale at the time, for a reading, and Ruth gave me and the poet Traci Brimhall free tattoos to commemorate our time there. Ruth did the tattoos in her apartment, in her kitchen if I remember correctly. My tattoo is a '33', with the second '3' reversed, thus creating a kind of '8' that one might also read as an infinity symbol. 33 is how old I was when I got married; a few months later, still 33, my mother died. That the tattoo also makes something of an '8' is for August, the name of my son. I love this tattoo...That it evokes an infinity symbol allows me to pour into the tattoo any number of meanings..."

Ruth Awad appeared on the Tattooed Poets Project last year, here, and the tattoo she gave Traci Brimhall appeared back in 2012 here.

Matthew sent us the following poem, as well:

I Will Not Mention Him

I will not mention his small-handed excuses.

His covetous old-man-ness.

His blundering baboon-blood.

I will not mention his locker-room banter.

His ugly, ill-fitting suits.

I won�t mention his paid thugs, his goons who hit below the belt.

I won�t mention what he said about your mother.

How he wants to sue her.

How he called her a drunk.

I will not mention what he claimed in Pensacola; Toledo; Kinston, NC; Gettysburg; Delaware, OH; Portsmouth, NH; West Palm Beach; Greensboro; and I especially won�t mention what he claimed in Jackson, MS; in Birmingham; or in South Carolina and Iowa.

I will not mention all that stinks about him like a flooded creek.

I will not mention what he said about women and where he likes to grab them.

I will not mention what he said about Muslims.

I will not mention what he said about Syrians.

I will not mention what he said about Mexicans and walls.

What he said about Asians and deals.

What he said about black lives.

I won�t mention every racist little bone in his body.

His heartless heart.

His bat-shit tweets at 3 a.m. for his hooting rabblement and their chapped hands.

I won�t mention the drought in his brain or the cricket in the basement of his brain chirping somewhere behind an empty box.

I won�t mention his 30,000 fears and corruptions.

I won�t mention his recurring dream where, in flames, he rides his tongue like a deranged horse into the valley.

It�s so beautiful outside. Isn�t it lovely?

~ ~ ~

Matthew Guenette is the author of three full length poetry collections: Vasectomania (U. of Akron Press, 2017), American Busboy (U. of Akron Press, 2011), and Sudden Anthem (Dream Horse Press, 2008). He is also the author of the chapbook Civil Disobedience (Rabbit Catastrophe Press, 2017). A Pushcart Prize nominee, his poems have appeared in numerous journals and reviews. He has had residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the Hessen-Wisconsin Fellowship. A graduate of the MFA program at Southern Illinois University, Matt currently teaches composition and creative writing at Madison College in Madison, WI, where he lives with his wife, two kids, and a 20 lb cat named Butternut. 

Thanks to Matt for sharing his tattoo and poem with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is �2017 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading this on another website 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.

Simply The Beth

Everyone's reeling from a year that took so many celebrities from us. 2016 will be remembered as a devastating year from that perspective, and yet there are many of us who lost people near and dear to us - family members that left our lives too soon.

Last June, we attended a family event in New Jersey, and spent some time catching up with cousins. One of those cousins, Beth, has always been interested in Tattoosday, and we always talk about ink, inevitably, when we get together. She even appeared in these pages five years ago, here.

Anyway, at this latest gathering, Beth shared one of her new tattoos:

It's a simple tattoo, but Beth was very proud of it. The open hearts form a type of infinity sign. She summarized it saying that the open parts of the symbol allow "the good shit to come in, and the bad shit to go out." It was a marked note of optimism from her, as she elaborated that she was not letting the bad things in life bother her, and she was welcoming in the good. The musical notes are a nod to her love of music, and the paw is a tribute to her dog, Tiki. Beth loved animals and dedicated a lot of her time to dogs, even fostering puppies in her own home.

The piece was tattooed by Thomas "Thomi Hawk" Hickey at K&B Tattooing and Piercing in Hightstown, New Jersey.

Like a lot of Tattoosday encounters, I didn't post this tattoo right away. I hung on to it as the summer started and I had loads of material. This is a normal part of our "organic" process at Tattoosday. Looking back, I wish I hadn't waited.

My wife woke me up early one morning in August, in tears. Beth had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly overnight in her home. She was way too young and our hearts were broken. The photo of her tattoo sat on my phone. I had recently thought about messaging her to tell her I hadn't forgotten about it, that I was going to get to it soon.

That's an apt metaphor that we all know too well. We often take for granted that the people in our lives will be with us for a long time, and then, in a moment, they're gone.

Beth's funeral was heart-breaking, but it did afford our family the opportunity to start healing. We also got to meet Thomas Hickey and my wife and I chatted with him and his wife about Beth and her love of tattoos.

It is easy to forget in the midst of the wave of "celebrity" passings in 2016 that so many of us lost people near and dear to us. Cherish those memories. Remember the message in Beth's tattoo - let go of the bad shit in your life and allow the good shit in. We remembered Beth knowing that when she was taken from us, she was happier than she had been in years.

Thank you Beth, for your love and for your tattoos, and for being part of the Tattoosday family, always.

Beth was a huge supporter of Southern Paws Inc., a non-profit animal rescue group that rescues dogs and finds them new homes. Learn more about the organization here.

This entry is �2016 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website 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.