The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide is a guide to the emerging subculture of literary tattoos — a collection of 100 full-color photographs of human skin indelibly adorned with quotations and images from Pynchon to Dickinson to Shakespeare to Plath. Packed with beloved lines of verse, literary portraits, and illustrations — and statements from the bearers on their tattoos’ history and the personal significance of the chosen literary work — The Word Made Flesh is part photo collection, part literary anthology written on skin.

In 1976 I had Rimbaud’s name framed within a heart tattooed on my left shoulder. It cost me $18 at a parlor in Denver where drunks get tattoos on a dare or impulsive lovers get names tattooed they’ll later regret. I was neither drunk or in love. I wanted something permanently etched on my body that I could look at in my later years and be reminded of what helped form my young rock and roll self. Arthur Rimbaud’s poetry, which I started reading when I 15, was a defining part of my evolution as a songwriter. I never wanted to forget that. I made a commitment to one of my literary heroes. Today the tattoo is illegible, a puckered purplish scrawl bisecting a faded red blot that once was heart-shaped. It looks like shit, but I love it. It has history. And it keeps me connected to a part of myself I never want to lose contact with: the punk who believed that rock, poetry and art could change the world. It’s a badge of rebel honor.

The Word Made Flesh has a groovy website here and you can buy the book here.

What literary figure or phrase do you feel passionate enough about to have permanently emblazoned on your flesh?
 

Not to be a dick, but Infinite Jest permanently etched nto your body? No thanks.

But it is a good question: who would I want to make that commitment to?

For slightly obscure reasons I’m leaning towards Walter Benjamin: “On a window-sill stands a small wooden donkey which can nod its head. Brecht has hung a little sign round its neck on which he has written: ‘Even I must understand it.’”

People are afraid to merge…

Bret Easton Ellis

I’m a cheap bastard, and tattoos are pretty expensive from my point of view, so perhaps I’ll just get that line from Joyce’s Ulysses:

“.”

I can probably afford that one.

So you become like a human kindle, I guess. Only worse, since you can never change the damn page.

“I could be bound within a nutshell and count myself the King of Infinite Space, were it not that I have bad dreams.”

But I’d still never get a quotation as a tattoo, ‘cause it’s wicked lame.

“THE WORD MADE FLESH: LITERARY TATTOOS
(or: how to make something beautiful look like complete crap)”

Marc I know the rebel rocker stile lives.

Voodoo Child

While I sort of dig the idea of a David Foster Wallace or Pynchon quote tattoo, I also feel like you might as well just do ‘HIPSTER’ in giant letters instead.

wi_ngo: FTW

Marc, Hows about a pic of your tattoo?
Perhaps a ‘back then’ and a ‘semi-recent’.
(but, at least, a semi-recent)

Yet if you do commit yourself to a string of words like that, you should make sure your tattooist knows about typography as well - most don’t, and you wouldn’t want to wear beautiful words in a less than beautiful (not to say: ugly) shape or arrangement on/underneath your skin for the rest of your life…

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Wonderful concept about literary tattoos. Tattoos are pretty expensive from my point of view.Thanks!

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Literary tattoos looks good and stylish, but in some situation like writing someone’s name as permanent tattoo will become worse if that person is not with you anymore. So it is good to use literary tattoo as temporary if it possible.