(Photograph: Tess Adamski’s Jack Kerouac tattoo)

Tattoos that imprint favorite poems or bookish quotes on the skin fascinate me. Some, like the one above, take it to a whole new, imaginative level. Check out more literary tattoos on Contrariwise and The Word Made Flesh, an extension of the book featured below.

Publisher’s Summary
“The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide is a guide to the emerging subculture of literary tattoos—a collection of more than 150 full-color photographs of human epidermis indelibly adorned with quotations and illustrations from Dickinson to Pynchon, from Shakespeare to Plath. 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 collection of photographs and part literary anthology written on skin.” [Check the catalog for availability]