When I first started The Tattooed Poets Project in 2009, I was flying blind. Now, three years and 96 posts from 90 poets later, I feel truly blessed. To say it is a labor of love is an understatement. The Tattooed Poets Project may run for only one month, but I start working on it three months earlier, and getting thirty poets to participate is a challenge. E-mails back and forth, Facebook messages, and the sublimation of my worry that I will seem stalker-esque and creepy.
I simply could not do this without the people I call my champions: Stacey Harwood and David Lehman with the Best American Poetry blog, the incomparable Dorianne Laux who is an uninked poet, but seems to have an endless list of poets she does know with tattoos, and Adam Deutsch, my West Coast connection. This year, Patricia Carragon, who curates the Brownstone Poets reading group in New York became the latest in a growing list of talented individuals who sounded the clarion call for submissions.
To these folks, as well as all the participants who contributed this year, I raise my arms in a gesture of praise and thanksgiving. Without all of you, this little venture, which next year will eclipse the century mark in both submissions and contributors, would be fruitless.
Remember, you can see who has participated this year, as well as in years past, here, in the Tattooed Poets Project Index.
Again, thanks to all who have sent me their work, both written and inked, and to all of you who have been checking in daily. And for all of you Tattoosday fans who have been waiting patiently for our "regular" programming to resume, tomorrow we will start posting regularly again, and, boy, do we have some great stuff to showcase in May.
With gratitude and humility, I thank you all.
Bill Cohen