Tattoo Design

The Tattooed Poets Project: Cody Todd

We are extending the Tattooed Poets Project through the weekend, giving those who have been enjoying the poetic ink, a little bit more to tide them over until next year. Today we are being visited by an old friend, Cody Todd, whose tattoos appeared <a href="http://tattoosday.blogspot.com/2009/04/cody-todds-murals-star-wars-and.html">here</a> last year. This is his latest tattoo, four weeks old, inked at <a href="http://purplepanthertattoos.com/">Purple Panther Tattoos</a> off of Sunset in Los Angeles: <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQJrioXZWYB4T2SunHKBVoleqbLX15ZbQk-u2eM9UhH6HmRLnLKoXOCVz0OpfEmAJn7VwSC4t1e0MzmWrpSDsAeNQZ6RSJYv-CRPxZ2G9AoP9UoWXjYnIlXmINYCnAD17UWAax5A5h/s1600/CodyToddArmTattoo.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5466107361407749074" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQJrioXZWYB4T2SunHKBVoleqbLX15ZbQk-u2eM9UhH6HmRLnLKoXOCVz0OpfEmAJn7VwSC4t1e0MzmWrpSDsAeNQZ6RSJYv-CRPxZ2G9AoP9UoWXjYnIlXmINYCnAD17UWAax5A5h/s320/CodyToddArmTattoo.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" /></a> Cody provided this explanation: <blockquote>Not too much of a story behind this. It is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marv_%28Sin_City%29">Marv</a> and Goldie from the "<a href="http://www.abebooks.com/9781593072933/City-1-Hard-Goodbye-Miller-1593072937/plp">The Hard Goodbye</a>" of <a href="http://frankmillerink.com/">Frank Miller's</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_City">Sin City</a>. The artist who did this is from Tokyo, and her name is <a href="http://www.purplepanthertattoos.com/koko.html">Koko Ainai</a>. I admire the precision of her work in copying Miller's extremely elaborate sketching. As Marv and Goldie embrace, he is holding a gun he apparently took away from her and a bullet hole is smoldering in his right shoulder as he lifts her off the ground. That tattoo is the first of what is going to be a kind of sleeve in parts in which I take different scenes from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir">noir</a> films or works and decorate my whole left arm with. Upon seeing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell,_My_Lovely_%281975_film%29">Farewell My Lovely</a> with my girlfriend last week, I decided to get the front end of a 1934 or 1936 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick">Buick</a> as my next tattoo. ...I am doing my critical work for my PhD at <a href="http://www.usc.edu/">USC</a> on the "western noir," which is a term I sort of coined for a specific genre of film and literature concerned with elements that typically comprise classical film noir, except they take place in cities in the western part of the United States. As we see in the film, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401792/">Sin City</a>, it has a "Gothic City" feel to it, but it is most certainly somewhere out in western Nevada, or California. I think the motifs of lawlessness, street and vigilante justice, and the disillusionment with the American Dream are all at work in this kind of genre, and that it also borrows many elements from the Western as a genre as well. If anyone wants to read good literary western noir, I would direct them, promptly, to read <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Woodrell">Daniel Woodrell</a>, who takes the noir theme and brings it to the Ozarks and southwest Missouri. If <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler">Chandler</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulkner">Faulkner</a> had a love-child, it most certainly would be Woodrell. </blockquote> Head over to BillyBlog and read one of Cody's poems <a href="http://oxypoet.blogspot.com/2010/05/tattooed-poets-project-cody-todd.html">here</a>. Cody Todd is the author of the chapbook, <a href="http://www.proempress.com/To_Frankenstein_My_Father.htm">To Frankenstein, My Father</a> (2007, <a href="http://www.proempress.com/index.htm">Proem Press</a>). His poems have appeared in <a href="http://www.hungermtn.org/" style="font-style: italic;">Hunger Mountain</a>, <a href="http://www.salthilljournal.net/" style="font-style: italic;">Salt Hill</a> and are forthcoming in <a href="http://www.pserie.psu.edu/academic/hss/lakeeffect/index.html" style="font-style: italic;">Lake Effect</a>, <a href="http://www.thepinchjournal.com/" style="font-style: italic;">The Pinch</a>, <a href="http://www.specsjournal.org/">Specs Journal</a> and <a href="http://www.denverquarterly.com/" style="font-style: italic;">Denver Quarterly</a>. He received an MFA from <a href="http://www.wmich.edu/">Western Michigan University</a> and is currently a Virginia Middleton Fellow in the PhD program in English-Literature/Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. He is the Managing Editor and co-creator of the poetry journal, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.theoffendingadam.com">The Offending Adam</a> (www.theoffendingadam.com).

The Tattooed Poets Project: Cody Todd

We are extending the Tattooed Poets Project through the weekend, giving those who have been enjoying the poetic ink, a little bit more to ti...

9:01 PM

The Tattooed Poets Project: Jozi Tatham

Today's tattoo (and remember folks, we're continuing through May 2!) belongs to Jozi Tatham, who was referred to us by the Milwaukee Poet Laureate, Brenda Cárdenas (thanks Brenda!). Her tattoo is certainly amazing: <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEginrPNdNQ6UzdCngfdwTbRCXgD936Dwa9FduH02wl0oM4YyjZJvo1dPMv83G-IPhc_-gHyY6tbxtafVZDMUUxqU6Kn99C8v7bQEQFBTJKwaBvSh3KnNhWdi3Ytv7jiFlNwsCxDVjrE/s1600/Back_Tattoo_+JOZI.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5465681866626408658" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEginrPNdNQ6UzdCngfdwTbRCXgD936Dwa9FduH02wl0oM4YyjZJvo1dPMv83G-IPhc_-gHyY6tbxtafVZDMUUxqU6Kn99C8v7bQEQFBTJKwaBvSh3KnNhWdi3Ytv7jiFlNwsCxDVjrE/s400/Back_Tattoo_+JOZI.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 309px;" /></a> Jozi had this tattoo done by <a href="http://www.skinmilwaukee.com/steve.htm">Steve Bossler</a>, who owns <a href="http://www.myspace.com/greenseedstudios">Greenseed Studios</a> in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. She had met him originally at <a href="http://www.skinmilwaukee.com/home.htm">Papes Blue Ribbon Tattoo</a> in Milwaukee. Steve splits his time between the two locations. Jozi explains the inspiration behind this tattoo: <blockquote>I have wanted this back tattoo for years now. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060254920">Where the Wild Things Are</a> was my favorite book growing up. Because I have since become a writer, it's extremely important to me to remember the childhood imagination and creativity that we are all born with, but which we often "outgrow". I refuse to grow up and let my imagination slip away, and hopefully having the monsters of creativity tattooed on my body will keep that close to me.</blockquote> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPxANH8JulfuEwEotQaRxdXrfUrDTBLHvKGqZwTdhfQ05bXudWAtMjXxuDfdlBsyvs9tJgTU4R0ugqnEz_64HZ9lPkiOg36xvzCQJJKvoMqRpzL7rCl6R0XZwVKiE1EcjCbCeW0gkZ/s1600/where-the-wild-things-are.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5465684914791848706" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPxANH8JulfuEwEotQaRxdXrfUrDTBLHvKGqZwTdhfQ05bXudWAtMjXxuDfdlBsyvs9tJgTU4R0ugqnEz_64HZ9lPkiOg36xvzCQJJKvoMqRpzL7rCl6R0XZwVKiE1EcjCbCeW0gkZ/s400/where-the-wild-things-are.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 255px;" /></a> Please check out one of Jozi's poems over on BillyBlog <a href="http://oxypoet.blogspot.com/2010/04/tattooed-poets-project-jozi-tatham.html">here</a>. Jozi Tatham is currently a poetry MFA student at <a href="http://www.gmu.edu/">George Mason University</a> in Virginia. She hails from Milwaukee, WI where she received her BA and the place which serves as "the inspiration for most of my being thus far." She has been published in newspapers and small publications in the Milwaukee area for poetry and nonfiction. Thanks to Jozi for sharing with us here at Tattoosday!