#sylvia plath tattoos

via stopcuttingurfringe on reddit

“Fig Juggling as an hommage to Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, done by Eve Mansell at Bloom St Tattoo, Manchester UK “

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.
From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

–Sylvia Plath,The Bell Jar, Chapter Seven, 1963

bitchyglow:

“I lift my lids and all is born again”

Mad Girl’s Love Song

A Villanelle

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

–Sylvia Plath, written 1954, The Collected Poems, 1981

via floodedvanes on reddit

Done by Dylan Kuiper at the Grand Illusion Tattoo in Melbourne, Australia.

***
“Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.”

–from “Lady Lazarus”, 23-29 October 1962

daisyxbuchananx-blog:

So I posted this on my other account @twilightvanillasky but I figured I might aswell post it on this one too..

So this is my first tattoo. A quote from the book ‘the bell jar’ by Sylvia Plath. The book revolves around the protagonist’s journey with depression. Sylvia Plath herself, battled depression and committed suicide at the age of 31.
To me, this quote is a reminder of my value. I am a daughter, I am a grandaughter, I am a sister, I am a niece, I am a cousin, I am a girlfriend, I am a friend, I am creative, I am clever, I am caring, etc. I am more than any bad feeling or bad situation that I have experienced/will experience in my life. As someone who faces anxiety, low mood and lack of confidence, this is an important thing to remember. Plath also uses this quote as a literary device, called Iambic Pentameter. If you say it out loud, it mirrors the sound of a heartbeat. As long as my heart is beating, I’ll be okay.
With everything that’s happening in my life at the moment, I thought I’d share this with you all. It makes me sad that when people ask and I tell them that it’s a quote from one of my favourite books, they snigger.
Love u all & thank you for reading this x

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I  am, I am, I am.”

—Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 20, 1963

tattooart247:

Sylvia Plath inspired fig tattoo by @sheilamarcello of Electric Tattoo in Asbury Park, NJ

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.
From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

–Sylvia Plath,The Bell Jar, Chapter Seven, 1963

fanfictionvixensstuff-blog:

My tribute to the patron saint of the depressed, the anxious, and the overthinkers…Sylvia Plath. My reminder that I have a reason to keep going. My heart is still beating.

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I  am, I am, I am.”

—Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 20, 1963

viagrim puppy on Twitter

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

–Sylvia Plath, from The Bell Jar, Chapter Seven

instapicsil2:

I fancied you’d return the way you said, But I grow old and I forget your name. (I think I made you up inside my head.) _ “So, it was my first tattoo, and it’s from a Sylvia Plath poem called, ‘Mad Girl’s Love Song.’ I got it for literally no reason other than that I liked that poem, wanted a tattoo, and was going through a very ~ moody, brooding ~ time. I was like, 20.” — @kathrynfiona _ Comment your first tattoo story below. Photo: @beth_s_photo https://ift.tt/2JfG07c

Mad Girl’s Love Song

A Villanelle

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

–Sylvia Plath, written 1954, The Collected Poems, 1981

viaPrincess Prazsky on Twitter

Sylvia Plath meets René Magritte meets Princess Prazsky’s drawing

“How we need another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm. To rest and trust; to give your soul in confidence: I need this, I need someone to pour myself into.”

–The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, diary entry no. 25, 1950

René Magritte, The Lovers, 1928

via Twitter @LeapGilead

(Please don’t forget to also like the picture there)

ADMONITION

If you dissect a bird
To diagram the tongue
You’ll cut the chord
Articulating song.

If you flay a beast
To marvel at the mane
You’ll wreck the rest
From which the fur began.

If you assault a fish
To analyze the fin
Your hands will crush
The generatihg bone.

If you pluck out the heart
To find what makes it move,
You’ll halt the clock
That syncopates our love.

–Sylvia Plath, in: The Collected Poems, Juvenilia 1952-1956, 1981

fuckyeahtattoos:

Finally got around to mohawking my (awkwardly shaped) head and tattooing it.  Couldn’t be more happy.

Idea for the fish patterned tattoo comes from the line “like a terrible fish” from Sylvia Plath’s poem “The Mirror” which I also have tattooed on my wrist.

Tattoo by Welt of Yama Tattoo Rome.

MIRROR

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful-
The eye of the little god, four cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

—written 23 October 1961, Sylvia Plath,The Collected Poems

via Twitter@emoower

(Please don’t forget to also like the picture there)

Sylvia Plath inspired - tulips and a bee - tattoo!

via Twitter @donnafarinas

(Please don’t forget to also like the picture there) 

Design:@pusangkalat

Tattoo:@mialocatattoo

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I  am, I am, I am.”

—Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 20, 1963  

viascumlord3000 on reddit.com

Tattoo done by Armando at Atomic Tattoos in Milwaukee, WI

***

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

–From “Lady Lazarus”, written 23-29 October 1962

            “Meadow-Flowers” by Sylvia Plath. Pen and ink on paper.

viahttps://elisabetholiver.home.blog/

Fever 103°                        

Pure? What does it mean?
The tongues of hell
Are dull, dull as the triple

Tongues of dull, fat Cerebus
Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable
Of licking clean

The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin.
The tinder cries.
The indelible smell

Of a snuffed candle!
Love, love, the low smokes roll
From me like Isadora’s scarves, I’m in a fright

One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel.
Such yellow sullen smokes
Make their own element. They will not rise,

But trundle round the globe
Choking the aged and the meek,
The weak

Hothouse baby in its crib,
The ghastly orchid
Hanging its hanging garden in the air,

Devilish leopard!
Radiation turned it white
And killed it in an hour.

Greasing the bodies of adulterers
Like Hiroshima ash and eating in.
The sin. The sin.

Darling, all night
I have been flickering, off, on, off, on.
The sheets grow heavy as a lecher’s kiss.

Three days. Three nights.
Lemon water, chicken
Water, water make me retch.

I am too pure for you or anyone.
Your body
Hurts me as the world hurts God. I am a lantern ——

My head a moon
Of Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin
Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive.

Does not my heat astound you. And my light.
All by myself I am a huge camellia
Glowing and coming and going, flush on flush.

I think I am going up,
I think I may rise ——
The beads of hot metal fly, and I, love, I

Am a pure acetylene
Virgin
Attended by roses,

By kisses, by cherubim,
By whatever these pink things mean.
Not you, nor him

Not him, nor him
(My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats) ——
To Paradise.

–Sylvia Plath, written 20 October 1962,in:Ariel, 1965

Matthew P.’s tattoo via the Facebook Group “Sylvia Plath”

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I  am, I am, I am.”

—Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 20, 1963

viahttps://tattoocloud.com/

Michael McGough,https://artofmillion.com/

46 & 2 Tattoo, 308 University Dr N, Fargo ND 58102, USA

Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar meets Icon For Hire’s “Rock and Roll Thugs”