I asked poet and tattoo artist Ruth Awad to share some of her favorite pieces she’s done with us in our most Infoxicated of internet Corners. The results are so fabulous. Check out these samples of her tattoo work, as well as a poem by her that she says is her current favorite! I couldn’t be happier to feature her here. Enjoy!
Lessons in Grief
If you’re gone I mean
really gone, then whose
voice is that veining through
the shower drain – no, it’s
only water, but here I am,
half wet and stung
with the mercy of living
where your robe trailed
like a thought across
the kitchen floor
and my hands are filling
with dirt. Or is it water?
Tell me a well is enough
to hold me. Or is it just
the bats sweeping low
enough to feel like comfort?
I’m a clockwork animal tied
to fading light, but the days
never stop coming.
Hear the audio version of this poem .
Ruth Awad has a MFA in Creative Writing from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and her work has appeared in The New Republic, Southern Indiana Review, CALYX, Diode, Anti-, Rattle, The Missouri Review’s Poem of the Week, Vinyl Poetry, Epiphany, The Drunken Boat, Copper Nickel, RHINO, KYSO Flash, The Spoon River Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She won the 2013 and 2012 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, the 2011 Copper Nickel Poetry Contest, and she was a finalist for the 2013 Ruth Lilly Fellowship. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her two Pomeranians.
