The Tattooed Poets Project: Farid Matuk

Our next tattooed poet is Farid Matuk.<br /><br />Check out this photo he sent:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPmJJoDzzIlwkGsq83tlkkSNwEIi0swjE0fc3nVrDnPlfgnpRNEYElqXqLvqVrRhStsXonTK0r2Yx4IcswrPHXMhDJ8RA_BiNASFfPk6L9O3HZyPoh6Q-Z9dqC74L-qLVF6IRyRo47plI/s572/photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPmJJoDzzIlwkGsq83tlkkSNwEIi0swjE0fc3nVrDnPlfgnpRNEYElqXqLvqVrRhStsXonTK0r2Yx4IcswrPHXMhDJ8RA_BiNASFfPk6L9O3HZyPoh6Q-Z9dqC74L-qLVF6IRyRo47plI/s640/photo.jpg" width="476" /></a></div><br />That's Farid's foot on the bottom. He explains:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"I had this piece done at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Suffer-City-Tattoos/338515920754">Suffer City Tattoos</a> in Dallas, TX on New Year's day 2013. I believe the artist's name is Robert. I chose to replicate a freckle my daughter has on side of her right foot. I wanted to place a crown atop the freckle to suggest the special place she has in my heart.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhypgeozpq8Wp_vVAUkU6OEJZzaVKcGPJWcQbAxfxaZvMZr-zxvE072RA3phkmpP2zBJ1ffuhplco01YV5R4C7De9GnfYfDARu3sql7gaWBLFeIfnwLAnfQWccyUkyPsN9c1SugBQbnRJE/s327/photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhypgeozpq8Wp_vVAUkU6OEJZzaVKcGPJWcQbAxfxaZvMZr-zxvE072RA3phkmpP2zBJ1ffuhplco01YV5R4C7De9GnfYfDARu3sql7gaWBLFeIfnwLAnfQWccyUkyPsN9c1SugBQbnRJE/s400/photo.jpg" width="305" /></a></div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">She's also bossy in an endearing way, and I often feel I'm in training not to serve her needs (as the martyr model of parenting would have it), but to definitely make a place for her needs and agendas in my otherwise self-directed life. I guess this is typical of most parent/toddler relationships and the crown helps me commemorate this dynamic. I took the stylized crown design from a tattoo I saw show up on one of the many tattoo boards I follow on Pinterest. The original design has the crown adorning the top of a bird's head."</blockquote>Farid sent us his poem, "My Daughter All Yourn," which, he explained, "is one of a series of sonnets [he] wrote after studying the sonnets of <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/bernadette-mayer">Bernadette Mayer</a>. It appears (<a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23291">here</a>) on the <a href="http://www.poets.org/">Poets.org/Academy of American Poets website</a>."<br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">My Daughter All Yourn</span></b><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">will she be closer to the falling away of the gaze of things than others?  <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">hands on the water she calls scene setting<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">hands on the table water over the houses and hills swimming<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">not the ocean or the sea but the frame of time she’ll tell of<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">wild happy yeses in her hands<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">she bites through in rage when rage<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">comes to her or we do and she’s too small a flag<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">what does our house say?  these borrowed things solid and whole<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">fabric lost to her a greasy boy speaks fast at the pizza stand<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">more available to be seen the young in their concerns<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">amidst the old artifice paint a boat and it will mean a dream<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">put names of your dear ones in it all yourn standing up<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">these little soft hands she bites through the bright white light of summer <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">shines off sand and vinyl siding itself composed against the salt<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">~ ~ ~</div><br />Farid Matuk is the author of <a href="http://www.lettermachine.org/thisisa.html">This Isa Nice Neighborhood</a> (<a href="http://www.lettermachine.org/">Letter Machine Editions</a>, 2010) and the chapbooks <i>Is It The King? </i>(<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Effing-Press/114745625205825">Effing Press</a>, 2006) and <i>Riverside</i> (<a href="http://www.longhousepoetry.com/">Longhouse</a>, 2011). New poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming online at <a href="http://poets.org/">Poets.org</a> and in print in <a href="http://bwr.ua.edu/">Black Warrior Review</a>, <a href="http://www.thirdcoastmagazine.com/">Third Coast</a>, <a href="http://iowareview.uiowa.edu/">Iowa Review</a>, <a href="http://www.litline.org/mandorla/">Mandorla</a>, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291467-8705">Critical Quarterly</a> (UK), <a href="http://thebaffler.com/">The Baffler</a>, and other journals. <u>This Isa Nice Neighborhood</u> was a finalist for the <a href="http://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/awards/annual/winners/?mode=award#nor_far_fir_boo_awa">Norma Farber First Book Prize</a>, and received honorable mention in the 2011 <a href="http://www.arabamericanmuseum.org/bookaward">Arab American Book Award</a>. Matuk is a contributor to <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1848611846/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1848611846&linkCode=as2&tag=bill03-20%22%3EScubadivers%20and%20Chrysanthemums:%20Essays%20on%20the%20Poetry%20of%20Araki%20Yasusada%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=bill03-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1848611846%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E">Scubadivers and Chrysanthemums: Essays On the Poetry of Araki Yasusada</a> (<a href="http://www.shearsman.com/">Shearsman</a>, 2011) and to the poetry anthologies <a href="http://www.vilcek.org/prizes/american-odysseys/index.html">American Odysseys: Writing from New Americans</a> (<a href="http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/">Dalkey Archive</a>, 2013) and <u>Beyond the Field</u> (<a href="http://counterpathpress.org/">Counterpath</a>, forthcoming). His new chapbook, <a href="https://ahsahtapress.org/product/my-daughter-la-chola/">My Daughter La Chola</a>, is forthcoming from <a href="https://ahsahtapress.org/">Ahsahta</a> in March, 2013.<br /><br />Thanks to Farid for sharing his poem and tattoo with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bill03-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=0981522750" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><br /></div><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">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.</span>

The Tattooed Poets Project: Farid Matuk

Our next tattooed poet is Farid Matuk. Check out this photo he sent: That's Farid's foot on the bottom. He explains: "I had thi...

Read more »