The Tattooed Poets Project: Laura Goode

Today's tattooed poet is <a href="http://www.lauragoode.com/">Laura Goode</a>.<br /><br />I had the distinct pleasure of recommending a shop to Laura back in January when she was planning on getting a new tattoo in Los Angeles. Knowing she was going to be near Pasadena, a lovely city I once called home, I suggested <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Resurrection-Tattoo-Body-Piercing/117923024934106">Resurrection Tattoo</a> and she was very happy with the experience. This is what she got:  <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga_4_5NGep5XhXlMfmjDD7fUvJy_ONR2he5JQRFukTkdGtlmLB1QVQRtXokDaFOfx4uuHgyRLojCO2zMPfwOh7OlOlP8rwYNcSJj-soqI25TfEM2C3Y4eRzD2fRLQM0DsTZBv9WeSLktY/s1600/goode.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga_4_5NGep5XhXlMfmjDD7fUvJy_ONR2he5JQRFukTkdGtlmLB1QVQRtXokDaFOfx4uuHgyRLojCO2zMPfwOh7OlOlP8rwYNcSJj-soqI25TfEM2C3Y4eRzD2fRLQM0DsTZBv9WeSLktY/s640/goode.jpg" width="382" /></a></div><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"My newest tattoo, a peacock feather, is an homage of sorts to my friend Jon, who died of cancer on January 20, 2011. Jon’s middle name was Skanda; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murugan">Skanda</a> is a Hindu god associated with the sword, symbolizing his protection, and the peacock, symbolizing his destruction of the ego. Skanda is often depicted riding around on a magic peacock, and I like to picture Jon doing that now.</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Murugan_by_Raja_Ravi_Varma.jpg/439px-Murugan_by_Raja_Ravi_Varma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Murugan_by_Raja_Ravi_Varma.jpg/439px-Murugan_by_Raja_Ravi_Varma.jpg" width="468" /></a></div><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The particularity of Jon, and the shape and singularity of the hole his absence leaves in my life, was that he was not just friend to me, but more than that, sometimes transcendently, he was collaborator. Our relationship was marked by fervent bursts of art. He starred in, and photographed, the first play I ever wrote. He art-directed my second. He took the author photo for the jacket of my first novel. He was my colleague, my interlocutor, in innumerable conversations about queer theory and Chinese propaganda art and writing and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphex_Twin">Aphex Twin</a> and, eventually, cancer. He called the Facebook album of my author photos 'Portrait of An Author As A Young Author’s Portrait.' He told me that if there were ever a Lifetime movie made about my life, it would be titled 'Laura Goode: Heart of Gold, Womb of Steel.' During a period of time in our lives marked by wild, leaping growth, Jon wove so many fibers into the fabric of my initiation as an artist. I hope I did the same in his, but I don’t have the luxury of asking him.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">For all these reasons, it felt appropriate to mark Jon’s impact on my life, as well as the impact of his departure from it, with a work of art. I got the feather at <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/resurrection-tattoo-and-body-piercing-pasadena">Resurrection</a> in Pasadena with one of my and Jon’s best friends, <a href="http://meeramenon.com/">Meera Menon</a>, who got her own feather for Jon. Afterwards, Meera and I talked about how we experienced the pain of paying homage to him in a skin-abrading way: it doesn’t hurt as much as losing him, I told her I had been thinking. We confided that we both thought the pain brought us somehow closer to Jon, closer to how much pain he had experienced himself.</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT3rd32WYHjibYKhdvJvEEBa4sKdQ2okPHwy9ipFT9PAKIHQs1r3awkDC6KFrHqlF2GDylS-stGAqNxdYnqiN_fKE-8cmT3KrKtE5VFpviUkTjJGdw0oyJVT3EghyphenhyphenkXZTR-Zg3Dg5wFTs/s1600/goode+detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT3rd32WYHjibYKhdvJvEEBa4sKdQ2okPHwy9ipFT9PAKIHQs1r3awkDC6KFrHqlF2GDylS-stGAqNxdYnqiN_fKE-8cmT3KrKtE5VFpviUkTjJGdw0oyJVT3EghyphenhyphenkXZTR-Zg3Dg5wFTs/s640/goode+detail.jpg" width="490" /></a></div><blockquote class="tr_bq">I look at Jon’s feather now, knowing it will walk with me always, and its splashes of wild color, its heady plumage, bring me some of the joy that Jon himself once brought me. As Skanda’s paradoxical peacock illuminates, death destroys the ego, and both the pain of losing Jon and the more literal pain of memorializing him physically have humbled me. In life Jon raised me up to the rafters of the imagination, and in death he brought me back down to earth. The below poem, I think, celebrates both contributions."</blockquote><br /><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">What The Body Becomes </span></b><br /><br />Look up in wonder: the recluse<br />& the moors have come in.<br /><br />The garden’s elegant logic, a mystic<br />event, greening. A return, if one<br /><br />is willing, to the fine dark clay<br />earth. A channel somehow<br /><br />open; another closed irrevocably.<br />I have so much still to say.<br /><br />The rite of production<br />is one, too, of consumption—<br /><br />the coal, wood, even peat<br />of day. Of life. Renewable<br /><br />resources. The fact<br />of heat. We, miners<br /><br />exhorting the earth<br />to give us back the dead.<br /><br />This is what the body becomes:<br />the sustenance of another.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">~ ~ ~</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="http://www.lauragoode.com/">Laura Goode's</a> interracial gay hip-hop love story for teens, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sister-Mischief-Laura-Goode/dp/0763646407">Sister Mischief</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=bill03-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0763646407" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />, was released by <a href="http://www.candlewick.com/">Candlewick Press</a> in 2011. Her poems and essays have appeared in <a href="http://therumpus.net/author/laura-goode/">The Rumpus</a>, <a href="http://lareviewofbooks.org/">The Los Angeles Review of Books</a>, <a href="http://feministing.com/">Feministing</a>, <a href="http://www.thefastertimes.com/about/?u=lauragoode">The Faster Times</a>, <a href="http://www.bostonreview.net/">Boston Review</a>, <a href="http://www.denverquarterly.com/">Denver Quarterly</a>, <a href="http://dossierjournal.com/read/uncategorized/dossier-asks-tell-us-about-your-first-time/">Dossier</a>, <a href="http://www.slope.org/">Slope</a>, <a href="http://www.fawltmag.com/four/">Fawlt</a>, and other publications. She is currently producing her first feature film, <a href="http://www.farahgoesbang.com/">FARAH GOES BANG</a>, co-written with the filmmaker <a href="http://meeramenon.com/">Meera Menon</a>. Laura was raised outside Minneapolis, received her BA and MFA from <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/">Columbia University</a>, and now lives in San Francisco; you can follow her on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/lauragoode">@lauragoode</a>.<br /><span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span><br /><span style="text-align: center;">Thanks to Laura for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday!</span><br /><br /><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.</span> </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><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><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><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=0763646407" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe></div>

The Tattooed Poets Project: Laura Goode

Today's tattooed poet is Laura Goode . I had the distinct pleasure of recommending a shop to Laura back in January when she was planning...

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Amy's Feathers from Hawai'i (updated)

We're tying up some loose ends from earlier this year, and figured we'd share this cool tattoo:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2QLCmzznNsbF5QvU9Xlu-jTxkE7PaLtSnbAidAvffe_cH7yyYPB2ObOpV7lvFHfqtw7i00O9IX7BsmzDbC7g9QM8Jnr8vaZ-Hx6C2g7aqiVR4ANtGufOKHNZ4Z8DvaTESDuzr1Hv-lZo/s1600/feathers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2QLCmzznNsbF5QvU9Xlu-jTxkE7PaLtSnbAidAvffe_cH7yyYPB2ObOpV7lvFHfqtw7i00O9IX7BsmzDbC7g9QM8Jnr8vaZ-Hx6C2g7aqiVR4ANtGufOKHNZ4Z8DvaTESDuzr1Hv-lZo/s640/feathers.jpg" width="370" /></a></div><br />This piece, on the back of a woman named Amy's leg, came to us in March via e-mail from the island of Hawai'i. Amy was a student of my mother's at the University of Hawai'i, Hilo campus. Mom snapped this photo, with Amy's blessing, for Tattoosday.<br /><br /><strike>We don't have any further detail on the tattoo, like the name of the artist, and the origin of the design. There are peacock feathers, and I'm guessing eagle feathers, but I can't identify the other plumage with certainty. Nonetheless, we thought it was worth sharing, and clearing out our "in" box.</strike><br /><br />Amy credits <a href="http://delshay.tumblr.com/">Delshay</a> at <a href="http://www.ktowntattoo.com/">K-Town Tattoo & Body Piercing</a> in Kona, Hawai'i with this tattoo. She added:<br /><br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div>"I came up with the concept. Delshay put it all together for me. It's my bouquet of feathers.</div><div><br /></div><div>The feathers range from peacock, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bustard">bustard</a>, macaw, flamingo, blue jay, pheasant and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Myna">myna</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>The story is mine."</div></blockquote><br />Here's another photo from the artist's tumblr page:<i> </i><br /><i><br /></i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWYoJ0z0hQ-6tQRJnIV2J3FlLJZIOgUz4seo59y9OEj9h7XihJH8b-IsliLbLl5R85Xn2WQPEAhZtAPys2RCO-uSF-fWwWBmY6BXSZ32rEuDvLFynb5Dbk8UUjOGgkvHdrzdgJtV2MgM/s1600/feather+better.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWYoJ0z0hQ-6tQRJnIV2J3FlLJZIOgUz4seo59y9OEj9h7XihJH8b-IsliLbLl5R85Xn2WQPEAhZtAPys2RCO-uSF-fWwWBmY6BXSZ32rEuDvLFynb5Dbk8UUjOGgkvHdrzdgJtV2MgM/s1600/feather+better.jpg" /></a></div><i><br /></i><br /><i>Mahalo</i> to Amy for sharing this tattoo with us here on Tattoosday! And thanks to Mom for sending it our way!<br /><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. </span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />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 <a href="http://tattoosday.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://tattoosday.blogspot.com</a> 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>

Amy's Feathers from Hawai'i (updated)

We're tying up some loose ends from earlier this year, and figured we'd share this cool tattoo: This piece, on the back of a woman n...

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Carrie's Astonishing Peacock

Last year at this time, it seemed as if everywhere I turned I was photographing gypsy tattoos. Let's call this season, the Summer of the Peacock.<br /><br />At the end of July, I ran into Carrie outside of Madison Square Garden and she shared this breathtaking tattoo:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0N0IJHF9yZpXKSBONjBB1sYX0dgoIbkjzQrej7v8TfGbtx13dTgoIHYKN2jCGaAZ3EHFSq5pdD-RgyvvXTR23kep3g-pzWYMtNFV0lXm8-1ECYXdFD8bf0l-arttfqa4fH-ps4wN0/s1600/peacock+carrie+msg+1+wm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0N0IJHF9yZpXKSBONjBB1sYX0dgoIbkjzQrej7v8TfGbtx13dTgoIHYKN2jCGaAZ3EHFSq5pdD-RgyvvXTR23kep3g-pzWYMtNFV0lXm8-1ECYXdFD8bf0l-arttfqa4fH-ps4wN0/s640/peacock+carrie+msg+1+wm.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><br /><br />This piece isn't yet complete, but represents close to sixteen hours of meticulous work by <a href="http://www.awaptattoo.com/norm.php">Norm Wright Jr.</a> at <a href="http://www.awaptattoo.com/">Art with a Pulse Tattoo Studio</a> in Glen Burnie, Maryland. The detail is incredible and Carrie explained that he free-handed the design with Sharpies, and then followed up with the tattoo needle.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC1NTl7CLbehUyBrd7MkDqWVSh7ZHQRw_q1acE7GVk9m4ULytc5eBRn647tUpKKzaIfYULsiIv02B35UMsnYyVz23Kt8hyphenhyphenpQ90SblTEVSWQsbpiO1TxBeoBvgdC70X5he2hPByLuPx/s1600/peacock+carrie+msg+1+detail+wm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC1NTl7CLbehUyBrd7MkDqWVSh7ZHQRw_q1acE7GVk9m4ULytc5eBRn647tUpKKzaIfYULsiIv02B35UMsnYyVz23Kt8hyphenhyphenpQ90SblTEVSWQsbpiO1TxBeoBvgdC70X5he2hPByLuPx/s320/peacock+carrie+msg+1+detail+wm.jpg" /></a></div><br />Aside from the beauty of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Peafowl">peacock</a>, Carrie explained that she was inspired by a trip to India, and that this beautiful creature is the country's national bird, which imbues the tattoo with even more personal meaning for her.<br /><br />Thanks to Carrie for sharing her colorful tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Carrie's Astonishing Peacock

Last year at this time, it seemed as if everywhere I turned I was photographing gypsy tattoos. Let's call this season, the Summer of the...

Read more »