I’m sharing this again. For anyone who’s ever wondered where the line of poetry tattooed on my right arm is from, this is it.
Most people ask to read my tattoo and then give the overly serious nod and slight side-eye and move swiftly on to another topic. I’ll admit, it doesn’t make much sense out of context, taking only the following lines from the above;
‘I send my rockets forth/between my ears’
As an avid fan of both poetry and space travel, an image which merged the two ideas was irresistible to me and I couldn’t not steal it.
But the poem as a whole is something I think best experienced in context.
Ray Bradbury read this poem at a scientific panel convened to celebrate the Mariner 9 probe, which was the first ever spacecraft to orbit another planet (Mars). He was joined by a variety of science and science fiction specialists, including Arthur C. Clarke and Carl Sagan.
There’s a bit of talking at the beginning (the poem starts at about 1:40), but it’s only Ray being his charming self, so worth watching.
It’s that little sigh of recognition that Carl Sagan gives at 2:42 that gets me every time. While this poem also summarises brilliantly why we write, it is primarily an ode to the creative powers of the imagination, and to space travel, as the farthest reaching application of that imagination. And it’s the collaboration of these ideas that makes the poem so brilliantly resonant.
To my mind, it’s up there with Carl Sagan’s bit about how astronomy and space travel are inherently humane and subversive endeavours which afford us a unique perspective on each other and our planet (Sagan’s ‘Blue Dot’ speech is another amazing piece of writing and well worth looking up).
Space travel has always been about pushing past known boundaries; which means it also resounds thematically with issues of feminism and other forms of social protest and I’m pleased to see that these issues are more intrinsically linked with space exploration in modern science fiction (if you’re a comic book fan, please read Kelly Sue DeConnick’s run of ‘Captain Marvel’, it hits this sweet spot exactly).
However, it doesn’t escape my notice that this panel consists entirely of white men. And as much as I love Bradbury and Sagan, they are at the end of the day still pasty dudes in a room of pasty dudes.
So for my other poetry tattoo, we come to Mary Oliver.
For me ‘you only have to let the soft animal of your body/love what it loves’ is such a lovely and understated rejection of violence (whether directed towards others or yourself) and an affirmation of what is good and useful about living.
I think it is a particularly poignant poem for a woman to write (and to read) because it casts off the notion of women having to be ‘good’. If we don’t have to abide by a moral standard we are automatically freed of repressive/morally didactic demands upon our behaviour.
This isn’t to say that the poem advocates for the ‘opposite’ of morality (whatever that is); after all, it suggests love as a ruling guide for one’s actions. It simply frees women from an injunction of having to be good, the sense of behaving for an arbiter, of being observed at all times and with a constant threat of judgement looming.
In a world of rape culture, where victims are blamed for their assault because they wore short skirts or flirted with their attacker, where women are still being hired or promoted on the basis of appearance and dress and accent and what these arbitrary factors supposedly represent in terms of their professional worth, this poem still seems revolutionary and necessary and I love it to bits.
I’ve also included a poem of my own below, not written in response to Mary Oliver’s (I wouldn’t dare), but about the day I got my tattoo inspired by ‘Wild Geese’.
This tattoo (a lovely but simple line drawing of 3 geese in flight) was drawn for me by housemate Myfanwy (whom I’ve known for 8 years) and whom at the time of writing I was about to move in with. On the day I got that tattoo I was actually visiting Manchester during a weekend when we were looking for places to rent.
Tattoo
For Mary Oliver
and for Mya
The needle
which eked out
only a little blood, as it studded
your lines into my skin,
was wielded
by an oddly quiet man, named Michael.
Who brought up his ex, in his shying patter
and dropped her just as quick; clearly
embarrassed, as he fumbled
darting glances in our direction
with assumptions of us.
We laugh about that after
in the bar with the schoolroom benches and exposed lighting.
Where they serve our Americanos lukewarm
and bitter, with a glass
of tonic water, on a chipboard tray.
Barbra Streisand – Happy Days
are here again – comes on over the speaker
and I have to wait
for you to finish the big number.
Overdoing it, with clenched fists
screwed eyes – though not so loud the man
in the booth over
can hear.
While we talk, riffing on Lord of the Rings
I leave my arm extended
across the table – an offering.
The patch of skin smarting
under the dressing, hidden
beneath my denim sleeve.
Where the wild geese
you drew for me
now flew.
Their words, invisible, and looping;
You do not have to be good…
As for my third tattoo… I got that one because my oldest and best friend and I got drunk in Didsbury one Saturday afternoon last summer and became overly emotional about how we’re both Ravenclaws, and so got matching raven tats. Please note that the official bird of Ravenclaw house is not a raven, a fact we did not discover for ourselves until after the deed was done.
It’s okay, I’ll find a poetry reason for it soon.
Rebecca Roy 