the cruelest month review series #12

i figure an even dozen reviews for eliot's famously dotty idea of april being the cruelest month shall do. but before i even dare to eat a peach i'll close out the month with a quick glance at another poet's blog series for the cruelest month.

i discovered bill cohen's blog tattoosday when gina myers was a featured poet with one of her tattoos and a poem. cohen asked a varied group of tattooed poets to submit pics of their ink and a poem or three for his blog. the result delighted the hell out of me. myers is one of my favorite poets, hands down, and i've seen plenty of evidence of her ink thru pics either sent my way or on her and other poets' blogs. but it wasn't until last night when i went thru the whole series and found quite a lot that made me happy.

the gist of the series was to get pics and poems but also summaries from the poets themselves on the how and why they chose that particular piece. that's what grabbed me by the boo-boo. i'm a sucker for tattoos. even more compelling are the stories about tattoos. the scope of the pieces is mind-bending. they range from lines of text to a part of punctuation. however, i would like it if the story included the very fact that the wearer simply loved tattoos for the sake of ink. not every piece is imbued with deep meaning. my own first tattoo was got because i simply wanted a tattoo and the image became meaningful as i aged.

at any rate, instead of linking to my favorite contributors i'll conclude by stating my highlights include the poems and ink by eileen myles, gina myers, nathan logan [who has a fantastic punctuation tat] mike sikkema and cody todd [who possesses a large bobba fett/millennium falcon backpiece that, i dunno, i like quite a bit even if i think the choice of subject ain't exactly my choice - who am i to judge some one's taste, and besides, i fucking love star wars, which was a seminal experience of my childhood]. and i strongly urge you, even if you don't like tattoos, to click thru too.

now that april is over i can start thinking of other things. summer is nearly here. it is time again to start thinking of nights at the drive-ins [its days are numbered but i am lucky that it has survived for another summer] and beach movies. the days are long and the light now is turning fluorescent. now, if you'll excuse me there's a peach calling my name.