Donovan Hufnagle has assembled a careful poetic ethnography of tattooed bodies and the stories that they tell. Just as the tattoo inscribes meaning on the body, this book elegantly reveals the stories that only the body can tell. It is a book that connects tattoo adorned bodies to a profound human truth: we are each other's mirrors, and the artful inscriptions of our bodies connect us to each other in ways that transcend political and social divides. This is an urgent book that does what only the best poetry can do; it opens spaces for conversation, connection, and healing.-Kristin Prevallet, author of "I, Afterlife: Essay in Mourning Time".
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The most common question is - will it hurt? I want to say, fuck- I TELL THEM THE INK IS MIGHTIER THAN THE PEN AND SWORD
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(@RawArtReview, 2 October 2022, e-book, 74 pages, copy from @PoeticBookTours, #Blog Tour 18 May)
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This is my first time reading the poet. I enjoyed Raw Flesh Flash The Incomplete, Unfinished Documenting Of even though I didn't like the title too much. It was the blurb that made me want to read this collection. The premise of the book is different from the usual poetry fare with the poet turning his experiences and encounters as a tattoo artist into verse. This is different one of the highlights of the book. There are also copies of notes for drafts of poems as well which I really liked. This is a personal, intimate collection of engaging poems and worth a read.
