The Tattooed Poets Project: Noelle Kocot

We are launching this, our fourth year of celebrating tattooed poets for National Poetry Month, with the work of an amazingly talented writer, Noelle Kocot. I had first approached Noelle about participating last year, but it never came to fruition.This year, however, we were able to pull it together.

First, here's a glimpse of Noelle's tattoo:

As tattoos go, this is fairly simple and straight forward. It's the name "Damon," but it's not just any name.

Damon Tomblin  was Noelle's husband, who died on March 10, 2004. She had his name memorialized in December, later that year. This is her only tattoo.  I'd point you to this page from dewclaw journal to read a little more from Noelle about Damon, and hear a few movements from a sonata Damon composed.

Noelle offered us the following poem, which originally appeared in Tin House, and was later included in her book Sunny Wednesday:

12^th Wedding Anniversary

Jailed and decreased, my doughnuts rise.

 Have a feather, don’t ask why,

 There is a Coney Island in my eye.

 Hair and plaid rabbits,

 Anniversal belief is the strongest to go

 Over a listless sky, a prevenient frost.

 Let’s go to the Cloisters

 And all you can eat sushi

 My tattoo should be healed now.

 Dear, you are a norming legend in the kitty-star.

 I eat for two, on the evening of

 We knew each other before our faces and our names.

~ ~ ~

Noelle Kocot is the author of five full-length collections of poetry, including most recently, The Bigger World (Wave Books, 2011) and Sunny Wednesday ( Wave Books, 2009). She has also recently published a limited-edition collection of translations of the poems of Tristan Corbière, as Poet By Default ( Wave Books, 2011). Kocot has received numerous honors for her poetry, including a NEA fellowship and inclusion in The Best American Poetry 2001 and 2011.


Thanks to Noelle for her contribution, and helping us launch this, our fourth year of the Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. Photos courtesy of Noelle Kocot. Poem reprinted with the author's permission.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Nescher Pyscher

Today's tattooed poet is named Nescher Pyscher and hails from Cambridge, Ohio.

Nescher offered  up his right wrist for us here at Tattoosday:

Photo courtesy of Nescher Pyscher

Nescher explains:

"The tattoo was done in two parts. The first part was my wife's name in Chinese, surrounded by an infinity symbol. It was my wedding present for her. I designed the tattoo myself, and I was inspired to do so by a ink-stamper-thing-y my wife's father brought home for her from China. The second part, my son's name, was my wife's Christmas present to me when our son was born. I do not remember the name of the tattoo studios or the artists, but both tats were procured in the Akron, Ohio area."

As a matter of clarification, I asked Nescher about the kanji representing his wife's name. He told me that the "three symbols mean--so I've been told--'Mother,' 'Earth' and 'Love.' " He added that she is a geologist, by occupation.

Photo courtesy of Nescher Pyscher

As for his son's name, Geir, he clarified that his name means Spear, which is Icelandic or Norwegian, in origin. Nescher added that "names with value and freighted with meaning are important in my family. He is the strong weapon in my right hand, the spear we cast into the future."

As for a poem, Nescher, offered up this piece:

dustbitten

i plant the seed of myself within myself--

mutated, cloned, half-life-whole that

gropes toward darkening life--

and watch the poisoned weed of me grow.

i am the frozen feathers of a bird in flight,

locked to dead tree, dying in estrous,

decayed in birth, and forgotten before the wind

could sweep through feathers.

i am eye,

i am face,

i am ear

i am the frozen corpse at the bottom of the well

leaking into life; oozing into being;

draining into dream and desire

i am fist

i am nail

i am bent, broken finger

i water the tumors of me with the salt of my tears

the iron tang of my blood,

the sweet toxin of my urine.

i am teeth

i am tongue

i am busily working lips

i eat my flesh, taken straight from crippled vine

and wince at the taste of my self-inflicted pain,

juices running unchecked down my pocked and hairless

chin

i am blister

i am burn

i am wounded, weeping sore

my madness drives me, sings inside me

and keeps me warm

the feel of meeting teeth on my broken skin feels

like warm rain in the evening;  

sun setting on life forever

i am stone

i am flesh

i am dust

 ~ ~ ~

Nescher Pyscher--his real name. Honest!--is a happily married, thirty-five year old author and poet living, writing and staying at home with his son in the Cambridge, Ohio area. His writing can be found at Weebly.com, Helium.com, Pablo Lennis, and his book of short stories, Itchy Whispers, is now available from Trafford or Amazon.com. His adventures in ineptitude with his son, The Pants, can be read twice weekly at The Daily Jeffersonian.  

Thanks to Nescher for sharing his tattoos and his poetry with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

William's Museum of Art

I met William on the A train one Sunday morning. He was covered with tattoos. When I asked him how many he has, he replied that he had "never counted".

As many of my subjects can attest, when I meet people with a lot of ink, I ask them which one they'd like me to post on the site. William offered up a tattoo he has of Marilyn Monroe, as seen by Andy Warhol. But, as such a tattoo has appeared here before (see Nina's ink here), I asked for something else. He let me choose this piece, a tattoo of the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat:

A closer look:

This is based on Basquiat's artwork, which is most recognizable from its appearance on the cover of a Maya Angelou children's story.

William also let me take a picture of his name on his hand, which appeared in Ina Saltz's Body Type 2:

William credited the Basquiat tattoo with David Sena at North Star Tattoo in Manhattan. Work by David Sena appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Thanks to William for sharing his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Tattoosday Goes To Hawai'i - All in the Family, Part 5 (Ulu's Amazing Plumage)

In January 2008, when Tattoosday was a mere infant blog, my mother sent me photos of some of the ink my cousins possessed.

I already shared Keali'i's sleeves here, but included in that email from Mom was this astonishing piece from his kid sister, my niece, Ulu:

Photo by Diane Scrafton Cohen Ferreira

I reached out to Ulu (which is a shortened version of her middle name, Uluwehi, which is abbreviated from her full middle name, Kamali'iwahineuluwehi) and we exchanged messages, but we never connected to discuss the tattoo. Then, last month, I was in Hawai'i, at the home of Ulu and her husband Travis.

For the record, despite my inkspotting ways, I was never sure if I'd have the opportunity on this trip to document all my nieces' and nephews' ink. I knew I'd be seeing them, but my purpose for doing so was not tattoo-related.

But as you may have read over the last week, there I was at Ulu and Travis's place, hanging out with family, and the subject turned inky, and out came the camera.

Still, I wasn't sure I would be seeing the tattoo from my mom's photo - Ulu was wearing a dress and I'm always walking on eggshells when it comes to lower back tattoos. But I was taking pictures of everyone else's tattoos and Ulu's back piece was mentioned. She happily changed into sweats so I could take a closer look at this amazing peacock feather tattoo:

One of the things I had always wondered was how far around the feather went. I got my answer soon enough:

As you can see the tattoo dips gracefully down after it rounds the hip. I'm glad I got to see this side because I was able to capture the detail in the color and the tiny pink butterfly near the tip of the quill:

Ulu got this, aside from the beauty of it, to cover up a "tramp stamp" [her words, not mine - no angry comments, please]. The original piece is covered by the eye of the peacock feather.

The artist responsible for this incredible tattoo is Libra, who freelances in Hawai'i, but occasionally does guest spots at 808 Tattoo, and was at East Side Tattoo Studio at the time this was done.

In that original email from Grandma Diane (my mom), she also included the tattoos of Travis, Ulu's husband.

I had never met Travis before, but was welcomed by him as one of the family. I took my own photo of the forearm ink he wears, also by Libra, in honor of his and Ulu's children, Ezra and Trinity.

My deepest and most sincere thanks to both Travis and Ulu, not only for their hospitality and kindness, but for sharing their tattoos with us here on Tattoosday.

This concludes the "All in the Family" subset of the Tattoosday Goes to Hawai'i series. A warm mahalo to all of my nieces and nephews for letting their mainland uncle help share their tattoos with the Tattoosday community.

Previously in the Tattoosday Goes to Hawai'i - All in the Family series:

Part 1, A Preface
Part 2, Keali'i's Sleeves
Part 3, Ikaika, In Progress
Part 4, Lehua's Eternal Tribute to Poppa John

The Tattooed Poets Project: Joseph Millar

Today's tattooed poet is Joseph Millar.

This is a bit of an unusual submission, as it was provided on behalf of Joseph by his wife, the poet Dorianne Laux. Dorianne, who herself is un-inked, was instrumental in last year's Tattooed Poets Project, referring me to several tattooed poets, who in turn introduced me to many more, acting as the lead domino in a fantastic tattooed poet domino effect.

This is the tattoo she provided on behalf of Joseph:


Dorianne explains that this tattoo is actually a two-part piece. The original was "a much smaller rose" by the legendary Lyle Tuttle. She continues:

"The banner was etched with his second wife's name, which I never saw as a problem. I liked his ex-wife who is an artist. In fact, her painting graces the cover of my third book, Smoke. One night he came home late with a bandage on his arm. I worried he'd been in a work-related accident. He peeled it back to show me he had the rose enlarged and my name stenciled into the new banner by Doctor Julien of [Julien's Black Lotus Tattoo in] Eugene, Oregon. I wish I could tell you I thanked him and kissed him, but what I did was sock him in the arm and call him an idiot. Secretly, I found I was pleased."

Be sure to head over to BillyBlog and read one of Joseph's poems here.

JOSEPH MILLAR is the author of Fortune, from Eastern Washington University Press.


His first collection, Overtime (2001) was finalist for the Oregon Book Award and the Robert H. Winner Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. Millar grew up in Pennsylvania, attended Johns Hopkins University and spent 25 years in the San Francisco Bay area, working at a variety of jobs, from telephone repairman to commercial fisherman. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines including The Southern Review, TriQuarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, DoubleTake, New Letters, Ploughshares, Manoa, and River Styx. His work has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in Poetry, Montalvo Center for the Arts, Oregon Literary Arts and a 2008 Pushcart Prize in Poetry. In 1997 he gave up his job as a telephone installation foreman. He now lives in Raleigh, NC and teaches at Pacific University’s Low Residency MFA Program in Oregon and yearly at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA. Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa has said, “There's a tenderness at the core of Fortune, where the commonplace becomes atypical and fantastical, and each poem possesses a voice that summons and reveals. Joseph Millar is a poet we can believe.” His third collection of poems will be published in fall of 2011 by Carnegie Mellon Press.

Thanks to Joseph and Dorianne for their collaborative submission to the Tattooed Poets Project!

Blocks of Lucky Ink: Heather's Tribute to Her Son

Heather has seven tattoos.

The one I noticed that led me to approach her is not the one you're about to see. It is on her foot and, in her opinion, slightly "flawed," so she chose to share one that is nearer and dearer to her heart:


The tattoo marks the birth date 3-28-99 and spells out the name Vegas, for her son.

What's particularly cool about this tattoo, which is on Heather's outer left forearm, is not just that she spells out her son's name in kids' building blocks, but that these blocks are also dice, which acknowledges the name Vegas, and its link to the city which is built on chance and luck.

Other images that ring the name are a slot machine, a horseshoe, and a hand of cards featuring four aces. The colorful dice/blocks also feature some traditional tattoo designs, including the standard "Mom" design (on the A block).

This great tattoo was completed in two sittings and was done by Baba, who works out of Vintage Tattoo Art Parlor in Los Angeles.

Heather also has a large back piece that she will hopefully share with us in the future,

Thanks to Heather for sharing her wonderful tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Tattoos I Know: Paul's Love, Over His Heart

On this Valentine's Day, I'm sharing a tattoo that my friend Paul had recently done. He showed me when I was taking the latest set of photos on the cover-up her is working on.

He pulled down the top of his shirt to reveal this simple message:


Paul's message to his wife is simple, but it is what is not spoken that is most remarklable. Paul always swore up and down that he would never ink a woman's name on his body. When he showed me this, I was surprised, but love can make us express ourselves in such ways, especially when we love getting tattooed.

Paul had this done by Pierre at Fort Apache Tattoo Studio, just around the corner from where we work in Manhattan.

Happy Valentine's Day from Tattoosday to Paul and Ana. Stay tunde, as there may be more Valentine's ink on the horizon!

Bill's Ink Honors Generations Past and Future

I met Bill in mid-September on the 34th Street train platform while waiting for a downtown A train.

You may have heard of the scent known as a "new car smell". Bill had whatis known as a "new tattoo sheen," which occurs when one anoints a fresh tattoo with a healing ointment used to protect the ink.


The tattoo depicts himself, seen from the back, standing in reverence at the graves of his grandfather "Giff" and his uncle Giff Jr.


It's a nice way to memorialize his family. This was inked by Aaron at Red Rocket Tattoo East, in Levittown on Long Island.

Bill has a great tattoo on his outer right forearm, as well. Whereas his left arm is a memorial to those in his family that passed before him, his other piece pays tribute to a newer generation:


In this piece, two traditional swallows hold aloft a banner bearing the name of his daughter, Allana.

This tattoo, his first, was done by Greg Fly at The Tattoo Shop on Rte 112 in Medford, L.I.

Thanks to Bill for sharing his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Alyssa's Arabic Ink

It wasn't Alyssa I approached on a Friday afternoon outside of Madison Square Garden, but her friend, who had several visible tattoos.

However, the friend was unhappy with all of her ink, so I asked if anyone else standing with her if they had work they'd like to share.

Alyssa offered up this Arabic tattoo, behind her right ear:


The script is the transliteration of her name, Alyssa, which she said means "flourishing" in Greek.


Definitions I have found point to it meaning "rational," or "noble," rather than "flourishing". Nonetheless, it is widely regarded as a very pretty name.

This was tattooed at Crazy Fantasy Tattoo in Manhattan. Work from that shop previously posted on Tattoosday can be seen here.

It just so happened I recently read the book Arabic Tattoos compiled by Jon Udelson. It's an interesting look at the phenomenon of the increase in popularity of Arabic script tattoos, and well worth a gander.

My favorite Arabic tattoo that has appeared on Tattoosday is this one.

Thanks to Alyssa for sharing her tattoo with us here on the site!

Geraldine's Joseph (With a Nod to Green Day)

It was my boldest moment as a tattoo solicitor to date. A half-dozen or so Green Day fans were decamped in the early afternoon near the artist entrance at Madison Square Garden. Green Day was playing that night and I saw one person inked, a woman, but I chose to announce to all: "I write a tattoo blog and was wondering if any of you had Green Day tattoos?"

Sadly the answer was "no," or, I should say, not exactly.

The woman I spotted before spoke up and we chatted about her ink. She was okay having me take the following photo, one of the few I've posted in which you can identify the tattoo contributor:


Her name is Geraldine and the tattoo she is displaying is a memorial piece for an ex-boyfriend who recently passed away.

Joseph was a musician and died of a heroin overdose.

Geraldine is a huge Green Day fan and Billie Joe Armstrong, lead singer for the band, has the name Joseph on his arm, in honor of his son.


Geraldine chose the same font as Billie Joe's Joseph tattoo and noted that, in the song "Jesus of Suburbia" the first three letters of each word in the song title spell out the first three letters in the name Joseph.


She had this tattoo at Ink Inc. in Kingston, New York.

Thanks to Geraldine for sharing her story and tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

The Tattooed Poets Project: Guy LeCharles Gonzalez Presents A Bat from Jersey and a Honeymoon Memento

Today's tattoos are presented by the poet Guy LeCharles Gonzalez.

The first one is a bat:


Guy explains:

"I got the first tattoo, a stylized bat, back in 1995 somewhere in New Jersey; Toms River, maybe? I'd resisted the urge to get one while I was on active duty in the Army, not wanting something stereotypical that I'd hate or regret a few years later, but a friend of mine had finally psyched herself up, and convinced me and another friend to head down to the Jersey Shore and do the deed as a group. Before we got to the Shore, which seemed much further away than we thought it was, we passed a small tattoo parlor on the side of the road and decided to go there instead. Batman has always been my favorite superhero, appealing on a number of levels, but I figured the logo would be too cheesy for a tattoo, and picked out a bat from the artist's sketchbook, tweaked it a little bit, and voila! I still love it to this day."

The second tattoo Guy sent was this:


Guy continues:

"I got the second tattoo, a pseudo-tribal band with my wife's name in the middle, on the second-to-last day of our honeymoon in Cancun in July 1998. There was a tattoo parlor in one of the flea market/shopping districts up near the elbow of the strip that seemed pretty clean -- despite the handful of teenagers getting tattoos they would certainly regret a few years later -- and against our better judgment, we both decided to get our second tattoos, each incorporating the other's name. We'll celebrate our 11th anniversary this summer, and before then we both intend to have those tattoos tweaked; I'd like mine to be bigger and have more of a Mayan flavor to
it as I've always felt a connection to that culture, even before our trips to the Yucatan."

Thanks to Guy for sharing these tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Please head over to BillyBlog and check out one of his poems here.

Casey's Name Transcends Generations

I met Casey while passing through Penn Station. He was waiting for the Amtrak to his home in Rhode Island. I spotted his neck tattoo and asked him about it because it was not your typical neck piece. He was very enthusiastic about sharing it with Tattoosday,

Simply, the ink, which begins on the left side of his neck and curves in a semi-circle to the right side of his neck, is his name (first, middle, and last) in Armenian.


I normally don't spout opinions about people's choice of ink, but I have never understood why people tattoo their own names on their bodies. I work with many people who possess cursive renditions of their names in ink, and these tattoos don't appeal to my artistic sensibility.

However, after speaking with Casey about his tattoo, I fully appreciate the design and meaning of the piece.

One remarkable thing about the tattoo, in my opinion, is that it is inked in a language that is not commonly seen on skin, in this country at least. I have featured kanji, Hebrew, and Arabic, but never Armenian. The name inscribed in another language, especially when it honors one's family
heritage, elevates the art and carves deeper meaning into the flesh.

What makes this piece even more phenomenal is that the handwriting of Casey's name belongs to his grandfather. He went to him and asked for him to write the name out in the language of the Old Country, with the express desire to have it tattooed. And his grandfather not only gave his blessing, but loves the finished product.

In this way, Casey has created a tribute to his heritage, as well to as his grandfather, and is able to convey that respect for the past. It will also be a constant reminder for him to remember his grandfather and the roots from whence he came.

The piece was inked by his friend Jesus, who was not affiliated with a shop at the time he got the tattoo 2 1/2 years ago, but is now working at Wicked Ink Tattoo in Riverside, Rhode Island.

As a bonus, on two-for-Tattoosday, Casey showed me his other tattoo that is inked on his right bicep:


"So you're a Yankees fan?" I asked, smiling.

Casey corrected me, "It's a memorial piece for my cousin J.J. who was a devoted fan".

J.J. died at the too-young age of 26 and the tattoo was supposed to include the text "J.J. - Rest in Peace," but he didn't have time to finish it. There are plans to complete the memorial in the next month, and I hope to post the final version here in the future.

I must say that I have seen tattoos of the "NY" logo for the Yankees, but this piece is one of the best I've seen, just based on its size and sheer brightness of color. The deeper meaning as a memorial for a close relative makes the tattoo even better, in my opinion.

Thanks again to Casey for sharing both tattoos with us here at Tattoosday!