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, Volume 4

It seems incredible to me that this April, in 2012, we’ll be celebrating National Poetry Month on Tattoosday for the fourth year in a row, by showcasing the tattoos of poets. Not necessarily literary tattoos, but tattoos of the literary.

When the idea first struck me in early 2009, I didn’t know if a) it would work, and b) if I would be able to pull it off. Every year, somehow, I manage to execute at least thirty days of inked poets, and, with apologies to Lennon/McCartney, I get by with a little help from my friends.

2012 is slightly different. Faced with a big family event in February, I got an early start and went from worrying about not filling the calendar to the heretofore unimaginable - too many contributions? Someone posted the call for submissions on a UK writer’s board, and I was flooded with e-mails offering up their poetry and ink. I started - gasp!- to decline inquiries.

The end result is a month packed with tattooed poets. There will be days with double posts so, if you are in the habit of checking in daily, you may want to visit back in the evenings, as well, so as not to miss anyone. Of course, I always point people to the Tattooed Poets Project Index (www.tattooedpoets.com) to get the complete rundown.

Thanks for checking in, and happy national poetry month!

Charles Manson! A Quick Peek from the Shop!

Charles Manson's Eye's.  New Tattoo by Brett Baumgart

MR CARTOON.

Yesterday the boys and myself stopped by SA Studios for Cartoon's Sanctiond release party. Cartoon has been a strong influence on most artists from the tattoo industry and last night he showed us all that hard work always pays off... Check out couple shots from the event...

Taking a break from black metal

We've been back from Germany for a few days now, and while the exhibition looks rad and we had a wonderful trip, it's reeeeally nice that it's all over now. Like, so incredibly nice.
We're actually only home for a little while and then we're off to Japan again, but at least there's no planning involved in that... or long ass drives! Just good friends and good food and probably lots and lots of radiation... oh, wait, not a great thing...
Anyway, i hope i'll be able to post some more tattoo pictures, since they've been increasingly rare here, considering this is a tattoo blog and all. But Black Metal March being all secret and shit has not made that easy for me!
But at least i had Allan send me a few "older-but-still-pretty-new" pictures yesterday, and that definitely is better than no tattoo pictures at all, right?

Part of a still ongoing sleeve on Natalie

I've been updating the blog ever so subtly this week. The "Travel & Guests" tab is now "News & Events", for instance. This is because i needed the tab to be a bit broader to include fun shop events like Halloween, something we hope to do more of this year. There's also a calendar now that you can check to see when we're doing something fun at the shop, or elsewhere!
I've updated the faq and other stuff too, and as usual, you're welcome to let me know if there's something you think i need to add to that.

Oh, and some info about the exhibition! I know i wrote in the previous post that it's there until the 13th of May, and it technically still is, but the owners of the gallery are going on vacation from the 1st of April till the 3rd of May, and that's, well, pretty close to being the whole exhibition period! So the gallery will be closed throughout April, but if you want to go see the show (and why wouldn't you? It's both awesome and amazing!), you can send them an email (lionheart-t-g@gmx.de) to let them know when you're coming, and they'll make sure someone is there to let you in. Easy as that!
We'll be posting a few pictures from the opening soon, either here or on Allan's blog, or maybe both, and in the meantime, you can see a sneak peek over on my blog!

RoBear Shares a Pin-Up

A familiar face passed me in Penn Station a couple weeks back and I jumped at the opportunity to talk to him - it was RoBear, from the TLC series NY Ink.

For those of you not familiar with the show, RoBear is the floor manager at Wooster Street Social Club, the setting for the show.

I first encountered RoBear last May, when I was one of the lucky people selected to take part in "Roosterfest," a fundraiser segment of episode seven on season one. $50 rooster tattoos were on order and I got, in my opinion, the best one - from Megan Massacre. I documented the experience here.

So, here I was, talking to RoBear in Penn Station and, well, I had to ask, would he mind sharing one of his tattoos?

Much to my happiness, he was game and, after a moment of thought, rolled up his right pant leg to reveal this tattoo:

RoBear explained that the pin-up is based on his long-time friend Natascha de los Angeles, and he elaborated by e-mail:

"I got the tattoo to commemorate my friendship to the girl who named me Robear when I was sixteen. We met at a BIGLNY (Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian NY) youth group back in the day at the Gay & Lesbian Community Services Center on West 13th Street and right after meeting she said I was 'cute, a little furry and that she was going to call me Robear.' It totally stuck and she has never one since called me by my birth name, which is Robert.

So, after getting the job on NY INK, since the name was so catchy, I wanted to thank [Natascha] and celebrate our friendship that has spanned almost 20 years now ... my artist, Tony Silva of High Roller Tattoo in NY, and I came up with this pinup specifically for her. [Natascha] is a pastry artist and chef in Manhattan, so I did the bakers hat, apron and her holding one of her own cakes she has made. Her website is Artesenal Sweets ... She is a constant inspiration and muse for me and all I do with my fashion, interior design and culinary arts, since she emcompasses everything that is beautiful and creative to me. A truly unqiue and special woman that will be in my life forever."

RoBear was also kind enough to send a crisper photo of the tattoo

Pin-Up by Tony Silva, Photo Courtesy of RoBear

and a picture of him with Natascha for reference below: 

Natascha de los Angeles & RoBear, photo courtesy of RoBear

I want to thank RoBear for sharing this tattoo with us here on Tattoosday. It's obviously a piece with a lot of  deep personal meaning, and he was kind enough not only to let me take a photo in Penn Station, but also to send along more pictures and give me a complete back story.

You can catch RoBear on repeats of NY Ink on TLC. Still no word on whether the show will be picked up for a third season. You can also become a fan of RoBear on his Facebook fan page here.

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday.

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. 

New Tattoo by Brett Baumgart!

Tattoo by Brett Baumgart. Background to follow!