This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.
Showing posts with label Slam Tutorial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Slam Tutorial. Show all posts

Thursday, November 17, 2011

"Wake Up Call" by Dre Johnson and Patrick Ohslund

"Wake Up Call"
Co-written by Jackhammer Serenade, the spoken word duet composed of Dre "Duke Bossman" Johnson and Patrick Ohslund

When the student is asked for his homework,
he laughs like I must be joking.
This school is in East Palo Alto
but this substitute teacher has seen these walls
before in Oakland, Detroit,
anywhere else forgotten about by real estate booms.

The student laughs because
he sees desperation leaking out of walls
built in the seventies lit by dim blinking fluorescence.
He laughs because his eyes are open, 
This young boy is no fool
He knows that this desperation
is a learned behavior.

His spine cheers with a shiver
that causes a sun to rise that only he can see.
His personal path of illumination
rises from his rib cage like a hot air balloon,
Fueled by words a teacher told him,
"your mind is a tool
sharpen it on books like they were wet stones,
to cut chords and hover above
desperate patterns to think for yourself."

This student is awake, won't sit down,
shut up, or listen blankly anymore.
But we are seeding our youth
With vines designed to choke out life,

Cafeterias in prison and school train gut as mind to
turn off and swallow the blandness
provided by Sysco Systems.
Blueprints for school buildings
fall from the same architects that churn out prisons.

Both structures clenched around the necks of their inhabitants
Strangling enthusiasm that would grow outside the bricks
Lining student prisoners in cell or desk
accustomed to jumping at the sound of a bell
Off to the next detention center.

IT IS TIME FOR A WAKE UP CALL!
But we are seeding our youth
with vines designed to choke out life.
And are surprised that babies drop out
of teenagers as teenagers drop out of high school.

Surprised at students with numb noses and punctured veins
to punctuate the "I don’t give a fuck" attitude
that drains into classrooms from
Governator’s budget cuts.
Trimming a little future out of our lives.

Education being cut down to the cold efficiency of
a mechanized factory has been an American theme since the days of
Francis Bellamy winding up a sales pitch
In the form of the flag salute, a wholesale
conditioning of government school kids.

American school children performing the original "Bellamy salute"
during the Pledge of Allegiance
I pledge allegiance to the flag
 In 1888 Francis Bellamy worked both as a producer and salesman of American flags.
To the United States of America
 He was obsessed with the efficiency of military and wanted school along with everything else to mirror this cold precision.
And to the republic for which it stands
 His mission was to use the flag salute to ingrain blind obedience into students.
One nation, under god
 In 1888 there was one slight difference in the flag salute,
With liberty and justice for all
students arms were raised to honor the republic, straight from the shoulder.

Francis Bellamy,
the programmed pirate infamous flag dealer
left his mark like the lynch letter,
slangin' the image of the red white and confused.

Francis Bellamy,
sold nationalism to government schools
to create armies of industrial militant minded
Pavlov's lap dogs instead of what should be students.
who are force fed falsified information
 while they sit entranced,
It is time for a wake up call.

Instead of a pledge to empire
how about a pledge to what moves us
Freedom from history books bound by chapters
That speak only of Eurocentric beginnings.

I pledge Allegiance to the light of knowledge
So that it may bounce off people like they were mirrors
transforming any classroom into this one. 


Copyright © Dre Johnson and Patrick Ohslund




One to create a new political slam poem is to examine the background behind a political action or activity, in this case the commercial and political history of the Pledge of Allegiance. 
The Bellamy salute was, and in some places still is, the way students were instructed to salute the flag beginning in 1892.
The pledge became compulsory for students in 1940 after Minersville School District v. Gobitis, opposed by Jehovah's Witnesses. That ruling was overturned in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette in 1943, citing issues of free speech under the First Amendment.
The Bellamy salute was later used by the German Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or Nazi party, and fell out of favor during World War II, although it is still commonly used in the United States.


From "Face the Flag: The surprising history of the Pledge of Allegiance":
Francis Bellamy
The Pledge’s genesis had a strong commercial component of its own. [Francis] Bellamy worked for a magazine, Youth’s Companion, that had boosted its circulation by offering American flags as premiums to schoolchildren peddling subscriptions. One hundred sales equaled one flag, and over the course 
of a few years, the magazine’s Flag Over the Schoolhouse Program put the Old Glory in tens of thousands of public schools around the country.
To expand on such efforts, Bellamy’s boss in the Premiums Department at Youth’s Companion, James B. Upham, concocted the idea of partnering with the World’s Columbian Exposition, a.k.a. the Chicago World’s Fair, to promote a nationwide celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus Day (which wasn’t yet an official national holiday). The proposed ceremonies would take place in schoolrooms and feature lots of flags. It would honor the spirit of enlightenment and progress Columbus embodied, and acknowledge the public school system as an uplifting, democratizing force in American life. “Our public school system is what makes this Nation superior to all other Nations—not the Army or the Navy system,” Congressman Sherman Hoar (D-Mass.) insisted when discussing the coming celebration with Bellamy. “Military display…does not belong here.”
To lend gravitas to the occasion, Bellamy felt a more dignified salute to the flag than those that already existed at the time was in order. As The Pledge recounts, Bellamy penned the Pledge “at a time when anxieties over the impact of mass immigration coexisted with expansive optimism about the nation’s future.” The entire Columbus Day celebration was calculated, as Theodore Roosevelt approvingly observed, to inculcate a “fervent loyalty to the flag,” and Bellamy himself viewed his Pledge as an “inoculation” that would protect immigrants and native-born but insufficiently patriotic Americans from the “virus” of radicalism and subversion. A few years after writing the Pledge, The Pledge recounts, Bellamy would eventually write a less inspiring ode to indivisibility: “A democracy like ours cannot afford to throw itself open to the world where every man is a lawmaker, every dull-witted or fanatical immigrant admitted to our citizenship is a bane to the commonwealth; where all classes of society merge insensibly into one another.”

Dre Johnson, right, and Patrick Ohslund
Dre Johnson and Patrick Ohslund are the co-founders of the 501(c)(3) non profit, Voice of a Generation presents: Digital Storytellers.

This organization serves to provide spoken word workshops, hands on education in the production of poetry based documentary films and to forge connections between students and Community-Based Organizations.


Voice of a Generation Presents:
The Digital Storytelling Project

Our mission is to engage a new generation of informed, skilled and creative leaders capable of harnessing the power of media to preserve their community’s voice, share heritage and culture through the development of spoken word based documentaries.


Dre "Duke Bossman" Johnson, longtime Oakland, Calif., poet.
Photo by Big Poppa E.

This is a call for financial support to provide in-class spoken word workshops and hands on education for the production of digital documentaries at Sky Line Public High School in Oakland, Calif. The end results will be youth poetry and film projects used in the media of community based organizations, a culminating spoken word performance and satisfaction of senior project graduation requirements.


Digital Storytellers has 501(c)(3) nonprofit status through fiscal sponsorship by the Community Life Network. Donations are tax-deductible. We currently have a philanthropic organization providing a 50% match of funds, you can contribute through our Kick Starter fundraising campaign.
In this campaign we will secure funding to run a customized pilot program at Sky Line Public High School. Our goal is to reach $8,000. 

These funds will pay for workshop facilitators, grant writers, film and editing equipment, as well as our quarterly performance.
For more information check out our website: Digitalstorytellers.org
 
Digital Storytellers is a participatory media program that trains young people to become fluent in the arts of spoken word poetry and digital documentation. Through these art forms youth improve their ability to articulate thus creating personally empowered voices that are infused into digital media thereby creating a means to engage in public dialog. We are building a reputation as innovators of service-learning and media technology education by facilitating in-class writing workshops where we also provide hands on instruction in the production of community strengthening and poetry themed documentary films.
Our goals are to produce demonstrable results in the following capacities:
    * Youth written spoken word poems
    * Student produced spoken word based documentaries
    * Inclusion of youth poetry and film within the literature and media of
      community based organizations 
    * Students becoming involved with CBO's
    * Satisfaction of community service and senior project High School graduation requirements through student interview, documentation and involvement with CBO's
    * Increased abilities of articulation
    * A quarterly Multi-Generational Spoken Word Showcase where students and
      professional performers will share the stage with leaders of CBO's


For more information, contact Patrick Ohslund, Workshop Coordinator, at patrick@digitalstorytellers.org, (949) 285-9086.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Slam Tutorial: Embrace Your Impediments - The Lisp


George Watsky featuring and hosting at the 2010 Collegiate National Poetry Slam Finals at the Cutler Majestic Theater in Boston.

You have a lisp? A stutter? A stammer? It didn't stop King George VI from rallying the English people to resist the Nazis and it shouldn't stop a page poet from slamming. We find ways to cope when the goal outweighs the cost. I have a stutter, but I have a sing-song way of shifting my voice when I slam, so that it appears to be my speaking voice but actually emerges as though I'm singing like the way I speak.

If your fear is a lisp, George Watsky knocks it out of the park by over emphasizing the lisp with this great poem.

"S for Lisp"
By George Watsky

So someone said to me the other day I’ve got a lisp.
A stranger you know they said I’ve got a subtle lisp and I should know I sound a little stupid doing spoken words when all my words have "S" in them are spoken so absurd.
And I’m not upset, okay it just sucks.
You think you’re speaking normally for two decades and then shucks;
find out your stuff sounds like a stanza of Severus Snapes toughest parseltounge is pronounced by daffy duck.
So I will say this.
My subtle lisp is not sinful. I’m not sorry Saturday, I’m not sorry Sunday; I’m spiritual and when I speak I celebrate the Sabbath seven days a week.
I've got special S sauce all smothered on my skull walls like a tossed salad so silk screen the Sistine ceiling on my soft pallet.
I sing along with super seensters reciting Sufjan Stevens songs in skinny jeans.
Dance salsa with soccer moms sneaking out in skimpy see-through sarongs.
I will answer your questions in stout with my sexy subtly lisping sparkling incisor small.
What’s my surname? Watsky.
What’s my size? Stocky.
My city? San Francisco it’s so sweet now slow.
See, I’ve heard some steamy stories of oral sex but I’m not stretching to say one time, I made a lady climax by speaking an S-y section of a Shakespeare sonnet in her split legs general direction.
I scribble all S Essays I shred them and sprinkle the whole S ashes. My speech doesn’t give a spotted sea snail if it passes. I slipped pass straight F’s to straight S’s in my classes because my speech stay second semester senior status.
Seriously so so so so soon, so sick sixth grade kids call me sofa king I’m on tongue steroids, slammin with the Sammie Sosa swing, so tight I sleep upright in a small cell in Sing Sing and sail the seven seas on Steve Irwin’s sting ray while your speed boats sinking.
[. From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/g/george-watsky-lyrics/s-for-lisp-lyrics.html .]
It’s still too soon.
Anyway screw an S.S.O.S I’m straight S.S.S for save someone’s standards. Studied at Emerson the school of savage speech.
Sup Stanford?
I spit sexier than Summer Sanders, Sarah Silverman, Susan Sarandon, Sissy Spacek, Sally Struthers, and Selena, spooning, in a 6-way same sex all S celebrity civil union.
So, you can slander the gay lisp and I will slip you a solid list of friends, or 60% of Emerson; who, lisp or no lisp, will stop, spit, stay pissed, and start all over on the racists.
You can save the South Korean stereotypes, the Sambo shtick, the sexist shit is sickening.
And if you suppose your speech is normal, its cause your impediment is listening.
Speak for those of us with something special. Something that sets us aside from my accent havers, my stammerers, my Southerners, my st-st-stutterers, yes I will spit it sick and stick to never skipping S.
Cause I was, sucking on a soup spoon and I suckled it to sterling silver simple supple super soaker staying watching sister sister scenage syllables coming esophagus move over there’s this place in second place isolate oxygen there’s no stopping this I start this step of speaking you should see that I will not desist
I’m sorry cuz see, If you don’t like a subtle lisp, but you can simply suck on thissssssss






George Watsky is a writer and performer who believes in the equal power of the tear and the belly laugh. Born and raised in San Francisco and now based in Los Angeles, he aims to cross-pollinate the stage, screen and stereo with work that speaks to both the humor and frustrations of modern life.

Watsky was featured on Season 6 of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO. He was the 2006 Youth Speaks Grand Slam Poetry Champion, 2006 Brave New Voices International Poetry Slam Champion, and performed in a record six consecutive Youth Speaks Grand Slam Finals. The last three of those audiences, all topping out at over 3,000, were the largest ever for poetry slams anywhere in the world. In 2009 Watsky was one of three poets who performed live on FOX at the NAACP Image Awards in honor of Simmons’ lifetime achievement award, and in 2011 he performed live as a guest on the Ellen Degeneres Show on two separate occasions.

Watsky has made strides to bring his poetic sensibilities to the theater world. His one-man show "So Many Levels" has been presented in Boston, San Francisco, Vermont, and at the Hip Hop Theater Festival Critical Breaks series in New York City. He has also been featured at the San Francisco and Washington, DC arms of the Hip Hop Theater Festival. He played the title character and co-wrote a 2004 adaptation of Dante’s Divine Comedy for the Living Word Festival and his stage play "Harold’s Fall or King Will" is the recipient of the 2009 Rod Parker Playwriting Fellowship.

Taking it to the page and stereo, Watsky’s debut poetry collection and CD, "Undisputed Backtalk Champion," was published by First Word Press in 2006. Edited by novelist Adam Mansbach, the book is currently in its fourth printing. As an emcee, Watsky has performed on both coasts with his band Invisible Inc. The trio’s self titled album, a blend of jazz and hip hop, features R&B sensation Passion. George’s self-released debut, Watsky, reached as high as #7 on the iTunes Hip Hop albums chart.

An honorary graduate of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership in Melbourne, Watsky has emerged as part of a vanguard of artists involved in the sustainability movement. The inaugural Speak Green winner for poetry on climate change, Watsky was twice invited by Robert Redford to perform in Sundance, Utah. He served as host of Green Mic in San Jose, Calif. and of the culminating concert of Powershift 2007 in Washington, D.C., and performed at Rock the Debate in Oxford, Miss., prior to 2008′s first presidental debate. His work has brought him to the opening plenary of Green Cities 2008 in Sydney, Australia, and Greenbuild Chicago, where he took the stage immediately before President Bill Clinton.

Touring while finishing his college education on a condensed schedule, Watsky has performed at conferences and universities in more than half the states in the U.S., and two in Australia, appearing at some of the nation’s most notable venues, including the Apollo Theater, the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, the San Francisco Opera House and the Shrine Auditorium. He has shared billing with Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, Bonnie Raitt and Mohammed Ali.

Watsky graduated from Emerson College with a B.A. in writing and acting for the ccreen and ctage, studying with Keith Johnstone, Ken Cheeseman, Robbie McCauley, Sarah Hickler, Amelia Broome and Andrew Clarke.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Slam Tutorial: "Beauty Ba-Bo" by R.C. Weslowski, solo and group versions

"Beauty Ba-Bo" by R.C. Weslowski. A little Lewis Carroll, a little absurdist, a little funny and a whole lotta awesome.


I have included this poem in my Slam Tutorial section of this blog is because it clearly shows how a perfectly fine solo poem by a single author can be converted in a group poem by adding choreography and multiple voices. If you want to make a group poem from your solo piece, watch the two poems in sequence.

A little backstory.

When Azami and I started talking seriously about poetry, she mentioned having seen R.C. Weslowski. I knew the name and knew his face from around the National Poetry Slam but wasn't that familiar with his work. The VanSlam (Vancouver, British Columbia) has a reputation for great poets - Ms. Spelt, Shane Koyczan, Barbara Alder - and sending great teams to the (U.S.) National Poetry Slam. They also have a rep for being somewhat ... quirky. As one of the heads of VanSlam, R.C. Weslowski certainly demonstrates that trait in his work. Being with Azami at NPS 2010, I was certainly more attentive to the Canadian teams that year.

At the Group Poem Slam, I first saw this poem (video below) and was blown away.

Brilliant.

Combined with seeing R.C. Weslowski at several other events at NPS 2010 made me come to love him as one of favorite performers on the national level.

The best way I can describe it is that it feels like it was written in the vein of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" though more mainstream linguistically or an experiment in alternate history done in poetic form. (Alternate history is a sci-fi concept that postulates, for example, Julius Caesar avoiding his assassination in 44 B.C.E., Robert E. Lee wining at Gettysburg in 1863, young Adolf Hitler dying in the trenches in World War I).

I.e., imagine that the evolution of the English language diverged at some point so the thematic elements of the poetic ideas are the same, but the vocabulary has diverged slightly.
"before the let-go and slippage into forging"; "the talk-me-down"; "me boom-boom" instead of "my heart"; "any-be" instead of "anyway," and the titular "beauty ba-bo," etc.

If you listen to the poem line by line, it's fairly obvious how R.C. Weslowski chose how to write the poem - not to say it was easy to write by any means - but listening at regular speed with his cadence and performance style, it almost feels like tasting this alternate history.

The style reminds me of how 2001 FlagSlam alum Andrew Clark Hall, Ph.D., would write. I mean, Hall was so brilliant he once wrote and slammed a poem written in Middle English for fucksake.


The same solo poem converted into a five-person group poem by the Vancouver Slam Team in 2010. Coincidentally, I'm the fellow in the cowboy hat seated two or three rows in front of the person who shot this team video.



R.C. Weslowski has been a clown mouth full of bologna in the Vancouver poetry scene since 1998. As a performer R.C. Weslowski is a five-time member of the Vancouver Poetry Slam Team and has performed at Festival across Canada, including:
 The Calgary International Poetry Festival, The Winnipeg Writer’s Festival, The Saskatchewan Festival of Words, The Vancouver Folk Festival, The Vancouver Storytelling Fesival, Music West, The Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.

R.C. Weslowski has also performed his poetry on the Eiffel Tower while snorting the remains of Orson Welles and along the Rhine River in Germany while debating Schopenhauer with a schnauser.

As an event organizer R.C. Weslowski was the artistic director for the 2005 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and the publicity coordinator for the 2007 Individual World Poetry Slam. R.C. Weslowski is the current president of Vancouver Poetry House and he is one of the main people making the Vancouver Poetry Slam run.

The VPS is Canada’s longest running poetry slam, now in its 11th year. He is also on the board of the Spoken Word Arts Network.

But aside from all that he will literally blow your brain apart and put it back together again using nothing but his voice. Seriously.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Utah Arts Festival Team Poetry Slam, part two


Nick Shifrar Team 801 Underground, the Salt Lake City pickup team
Dominique Christina Ashaheed and Ayinde Russell from Denver's Slam NUBA with a poem about the use of music in fighting South African Apartheid.

DeAnn Emett, from the Salt City Slam, performing a poem about a murdered friend that only escalated in intensity as the poem went on. By the end, I thought her passion would burst a an artery.

My Tombstone Poets Slam Team captain, Lauren Perry, closing up our rotation as the first poet of the final round. Aaron Johnson, The Klute and I, having all been team captains before, came to Salt Lake with Lauren so she could have a go at calling the rotations and work on her slam team strategizing.





Tara Brenner, from team Boise, proclaiming her love of vampires, the real kind of Count Dracula/Court Orlok-type seducers, not pansy-ass Edward "Twilight" Cullen "I mourn my lost humanity and don't want to ravish you" vampires.

Host Dave McKnight

Jesse Parent and Cody Winger, from Salt City Slam.


Poet from 801 Underground, the Salt Lake City pickup team



Brando Chemtrails from team Slam NUBA





Round 1
Salt City Slam, Salt Lake City: Gray Brian, 29.0
801 Underground, Salt Lake City: Adam Love and Nick Shifrar, 28.5
Slam NUBA, Denver:
Tombstone Poets, Phoenix: Aaron Johnson, "Lightning" 29.4
Boise, Idaho: Cheryl Maddalena, 29.8

Round 2
801 Underground, Salt Lake City: 27.8
Slam NUBA, Denver: Brando Chemtrails, Ayinde Russell, Dominique Christina Ashaheed, Theo Wilson and Jovan Mays, 29.4
Tombstone Poets, Phoenix: Christopher Fox Graham, "Spinal Language" 28.6
Boise, Idaho: Brenda Ray, 29.3
Salt City Slam, Salt Lake City: Jesse Parent, Cody Winger, DeAnn Emett and Gary Brian, "I Am Legion," 30.0

Round 3
Slam NUBA, Denver: Ayinde Russell and Dominique Christina Ashaheed, 29.9
Tombstone Poets, Phoenix: The Klute, Aaron Johnson (beatboxing), Christopher Fox Graham, "Hip-Hop Republican," 30.0
Boise, Idaho: Leah Cronen, 28.5
Salt City Slam, Salt Lake City: DeAnn Emett, 29.6
801 Underground, Salt Lake City: Nick Shifrar, 29.5

Round 4
Tombstone Poets, Phoenix: Lauren Perry, 28.4
Boise, Idaho: Tara Brenner, 29.9
Salt City Slam, Salt Lake City: Jesse Parent and Cody Winger, 29.5
801 Underground, Salt Lake City: 28.5
Slam NUBA, Denver: Brando Chemtrails, 30.0



Final Scores
Slam NUBA, Denver: 119.3
Salt City Slam, Salt Lake City: 118.1
Boise, Idaho: 117.5
Tombstone Poets, Phoenix: 116.4
801 Underground: 114.3

Friday, May 21, 2010

"Dandelion" by Perre Shelton



"Dandelion"
By Perre Shelton


she was never the beautiful, long-haired mother i wrote about in poems
she never walked barefoot through forests green blades of grass,
sheared a perfect two inches,
one blade at a time carpeting the front lawn of her pink and white bungalow.
she just wasn’t that lucky.

sunflowers and rose bushes never draped across white picket fences
her garden merely yielded curtailed dandelions polka dotted across patches of brown.

she learned to value their beauty because they had such pretty names, "dandelions."
however, she, my mother, still dreamt of sunny spring Saturdays
drenching her dreams with lemonade stands and sprinklers,
heart-shaped bushes and glass Coke bottles, liberty and justice for all.
but somehow, somehow she knew better than to dream too unsilently.

as a child she would fill my days with baloney sandwiches and flavored tap water.
then, i never understood how hard she tried to keep me happy,
and even up until today,
i have yet to discover how often she dreams.
but somehow, somehow i know its always about me and the husband she never had.
she was never that medallion-shaped, apron-cloaked mistress moving proud across the wooden floor she dreamt of
wearing almost perfectly white socks,
stretched disproportionate at the ankles from carrying life as pure as those damn white walls

she just wasn't that lucky,

but today wont let her forget.
wont let her sink into an oblivion of white walls and pined floors.
an oblivion of finely tuned but extremely rhythmless music.
mother, those dandelions are singing to you.

loud, boastful, brilliant.
mother, those dandelions are beautiful.
like you, but like you even they forget.
sorry they couldnt grow up amongst roses.
sorry they sprang from the cracks,
etched in povert America.
they grew up among society’s weeds.
the neighborhood hates those dandelions,
the neighborhood wants to kill those dandelions,
but my mother always grows back.
to soak sun and hold it in her cheeks.
thin colored all-brights, brilliant yellow
and that yellow faced dandelion will never die
but she will always dream of something more than those weeds.
until the day she realizes that a flower as beautiful as her
does not belong in a rose bush.

© Perre Shelton

Saturday, May 1, 2010

"The Desire of Dali's Women" by Caroline Harvey



I fell in love with Caroline Harvey and her work in Austin in 2005. She still ranks up there with of the strongest female poets I've met on the national poetry slam scene.

Committed to a life's work of cultivating creativity, awareness and vibrant health, Caroline Harvey is an artist, educator and somatic therapist in Boston.

Caroline laughs when recalling that her imaginary friend as a little girl was the moon. One of her other earliest memories is of leading a meditation about "floating on the ocean" for a group of first grade friends at a slumber party, and she still has the feather collection she began in preschool.

A passionate communicator with a natural fascination for words and expression, Caroline began writing and performing plays, poetry and short stories as a child. Also a lover of movement, Caroline enjoyed formal dance classes for many years and continues to dance as often as she can. Her parents remind her that she was never very good at following the rules she didn't agree with; she skipped past both the third grade and her last two years of high school and at 16 she left home to follow the Grateful Dead around the country. Caroline then relocated to England where she studied creative writing, art history and philosophy at Oxford Tutorial College.

In 2002 Caroline was awarded a master’s degree in dance from University of California Los Angeles' Department of World Arts and Cultures where she wrote and performed a thesis about somatic healing, the witnessed and felt embodiment of intuition and a cross-cultural examination of sacred art. She dove into her studies, exploring anatomy, movement therapy, choreography and site-specific performance, the politics of the body, and many movement techniques including the sacred practices of Afro-Cuban dance and drumming. Both the renowned movement artist/choreographer Simone Forti and the celebrated theater revolutionary Peter Sellars sat on her thesis committee. While at UCLA she also studied at the Department of Theater, Film and Television where she served as a choreographer for films and was the Teaching Assistant for many of the "movement for actors" courses.

Additionally, Caroline holds a BFA in theater from Boston University where she graduated Summa Cum Laude and won the Dean's Award for Academic Excellence. Caroline is a devoted student of health and yoga pioneer Ana Forrest and is a graduate of her Foundational, Advanced, and Continuing Educational Forrest Yoga Teacher Trainings.

She feels incredibly lucky and wholeheartedly indebted to the many pilgrims, elders, family members and mentors who have led the way and lit her path.

A dedicated teacher, professional artist and health practitioner for over a decade, Caroline currently works as a yoga, dance and meditation instructor & workshop leader, a doula (birth attendant), and is in private practice as a somatic Therapist in Boston, specializing in Craniosacral Therapy. She is the creator of Sacred Groove, an ecstatic dance practice, Awakening the Yogini: Extraordinary Yoga and Education for Women, and CranioYoga, the artful synthesis of Restorative Yin Yoga and CranioSacral Therapy. Caroline also teaches two voice curricula, Free Your Voice and Embodied Poetics.

Caroline also teaches and performs poetry nationwide. She was featured in two documentaries and appeared on Season 5 of HBO’s Def Poetry. A past member and coach of multiple Poetry Slam Teams and currently the Poetry Mentor at Berklee College of Music, Caroline has been a part of victories on both national and regional stages. She is especially committed to facilitating creative writing classes for at-risk youth, survivors of trauma and those working to get free from drug and alcohol addiction and she recently completed a poetry and visual arts project, in conjunction with The Attleboro Arts Museum, for teens in foster care called "Between The Lines." She is honored to have been featured at schools and organizations such as YouthSpeaks, The Esalen Institute, Bristol Community College, Northeastern University, UC Berkeley and UCLA.

Caroline's writing, which tracks her belief that even the fiercest traumas contain within them the capacity for profound healing and beauty, has been published in various literary journals and anthologies including the 2005 National Poetry Slam Anthology
"High Desert Voices" and the Harvard publication "The Charles River Review." She is currently working on a new collection of poems based on the women Salvador Dali painted and a book about her most recent travels in Asia and Central America.

She continues to collect feathers, to be curious, questioning, pioneering and wild, and she hopes never to stop talking to the moon.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

"Appletrees" by Caroline Harvey



I fell in love with Caroline Harvey and her work in Austin in 2005. She still ranks up there with of the strongest female poets I've met on the national poetry slam scene.

Committed to a life's work of cultivating creativity, awareness and vibrant health, Caroline Harvey is an artist, educator and somatic therapist in Boston.

Caroline laughs when recalling that her imaginary friend as a little girl was the moon. One of her other earliest memories is of leading a meditation about "floating on the ocean" for a group of first grade friends at a slumber party, and she still has the feather collection she began in preschool.

A passionate communicator with a natural fascination for words and expression, Caroline began writing and performing plays, poetry and short stories as a child. Also a lover of movement, Caroline enjoyed formal dance classes for many years and continues to dance as often as she can. Her parents remind her that she was never very good at following the rules she didn't agree with; she skipped past both the third grade and her last two years of high school and at 16 she left home to follow the Grateful Dead around the country. Caroline then relocated to England where she studied creative writing, art history and philosophy at Oxford Tutorial College.

In 2002 Caroline was awarded a master’s degree in dance from University of California Los Angeles' Department of World Arts and Cultures where she wrote and performed a thesis about somatic healing, the witnessed and felt embodiment of intuition and a cross-cultural examination of sacred art. She dove into her studies, exploring anatomy, movement therapy, choreography and site-specific performance, the politics of the body, and many movement techniques including the sacred practices of Afro-Cuban dance and drumming. Both the renowned movement artist/choreographer Simone Forti and the celebrated theater revolutionary Peter Sellars sat on her thesis committee. While at UCLA she also studied at the Department of Theater, Film and Television where she served as a choreographer for films and was the Teaching Assistant for many of the "movement for actors" courses.

Additionally, Caroline holds a BFA in theater from Boston University where she graduated Summa Cum Laude and won the Dean's Award for Academic Excellence. Caroline is a devoted student of health and yoga pioneer Ana Forrest and is a graduate of her Foundational, Advanced, and Continuing Educational Forrest Yoga Teacher Trainings.

She feels incredibly lucky and wholeheartedly indebted to the many pilgrims, elders, family members and mentors who have led the way and lit her path.

A dedicated teacher, professional artist and health practitioner for over a decade, Caroline currently works as a yoga, dance and meditation instructor & workshop leader, a doula (birth attendant), and is in private practice as a somatic Therapist in Boston, specializing in Craniosacral Therapy. She is the creator of Sacred Groove, an ecstatic dance practice, Awakening the Yogini: Extraordinary Yoga and Education for Women, and CranioYoga, the artful synthesis of Restorative Yin Yoga and CranioSacral Therapy. Caroline also teaches two voice curricula, Free Your Voice and Embodied Poetics.

Caroline also teaches and performs poetry nationwide. She was featured in two documentaries and appeared on Season 5 of HBO’s Def Poetry. A past member and coach of multiple Poetry Slam Teams and currently the Poetry Mentor at Berklee College of Music, Caroline has been a part of victories on both national and regional stages. She is especially committed to facilitating creative writing classes for at-risk youth, survivors of trauma and those working to get free from drug and alcohol addiction and she recently completed a poetry and visual arts project, in conjunction with The Attleboro Arts Museum, for teens in foster care called "Between The Lines." She is honored to have been featured at schools and organizations such as YouthSpeaks, The Esalen Institute, Bristol Community College, Northeastern University, UC Berkeley and UCLA.

Caroline's writing, which tracks her belief that even the fiercest traumas contain within them the capacity for profound healing and beauty, has been published in various literary journals and anthologies including the 2005 National Poetry Slam Anthology
"High Desert Voices" and the Harvard publication "The Charles River Review." She is currently working on a new collection of poems based on the women Salvador Dali painted and a book about her most recent travels in Asia and Central America.

She continues to collect feathers, to be curious, questioning, pioneering and wild, and she hopes never to stop talking to the moon.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

"Golden Boy" by Caroline Harvey



I fell in love with Caroline Harvey and her work in Austin in 2005. She still ranks up there with of the strongest female poets I've met on the national poetry slam scene.

Committed to a life's work of cultivating creativity, awareness and vibrant health, Caroline Harvey is an artist, educator and somatic therapist in Boston.

Caroline laughs when recalling that her imaginary friend as a little girl was the moon. One of her other earliest memories is of leading a meditation about "floating on the ocean" for a group of first grade friends at a slumber party, and she still has the feather collection she began in preschool.

A passionate communicator with a natural fascination for words and expression, Caroline began writing and performing plays, poetry and short stories as a child. Also a lover of movement, Caroline enjoyed formal dance classes for many years and continues to dance as often as she can. Her parents remind her that she was never very good at following the rules she didn't agree with; she skipped past both the third grade and her last two years of high school and at 16 she left home to follow the Grateful Dead around the country. Caroline then relocated to England where she studied creative writing, art history and philosophy at Oxford Tutorial College.

In 2002 Caroline was awarded a master’s degree in dance from University of California Los Angeles' Department of World Arts and Cultures where she wrote and performed a thesis about somatic healing, the witnessed and felt embodiment of intuition and a cross-cultural examination of sacred art. She dove into her studies, exploring anatomy, movement therapy, choreography and site-specific performance, the politics of the body, and many movement techniques including the sacred practices of Afro-Cuban dance and drumming. Both the renowned movement artist/choreographer Simone Forti and the celebrated theater revolutionary Peter Sellars sat on her thesis committee. While at UCLA she also studied at the Department of Theater, Film and Television where she served as a choreographer for films and was the Teaching Assistant for many of the "movement for actors" courses.

Additionally, Caroline holds a BFA in theater from Boston University where she graduated Summa Cum Laude and won the Dean's Award for Academic Excellence. Caroline is a devoted student of health and yoga pioneer Ana Forrest and is a graduate of her Foundational, Advanced, and Continuing Educational Forrest Yoga Teacher Trainings.

She feels incredibly lucky and wholeheartedly indebted to the many pilgrims, elders, family members and mentors who have led the way and lit her path.

A dedicated teacher, professional artist and health practitioner for over a decade, Caroline currently works as a yoga, dance and meditation instructor & workshop leader, a doula (birth attendant), and is in private practice as a somatic Therapist in Boston, specializing in Craniosacral Therapy. She is the creator of Sacred Groove, an ecstatic dance practice, Awakening the Yogini: Extraordinary Yoga and Education for Women, and CranioYoga, the artful synthesis of Restorative Yin Yoga and CranioSacral Therapy. Caroline also teaches two voice curricula, Free Your Voice and Embodied Poetics.

Caroline also teaches and performs poetry nationwide. She was featured in two documentaries and appeared on Season 5 of HBO’s Def Poetry. A past member and coach of multiple Poetry Slam Teams and currently the Poetry Mentor at Berklee College of Music, Caroline has been a part of victories on both national and regional stages. She is especially committed to facilitating creative writing classes for at-risk youth, survivors of trauma and those working to get free from drug and alcohol addiction and she recently completed a poetry and visual arts project, in conjunction with The Attleboro Arts Museum, for teens in foster care called "Between The Lines." She is honored to have been featured at schools and organizations such as YouthSpeaks, The Esalen Institute, Bristol Community College, Northeastern University, UC Berkeley and UCLA.

Caroline's writing, which tracks her belief that even the fiercest traumas contain within them the capacity for profound healing and beauty, has been published in various literary journals and anthologies including the 2005 National Poetry Slam Anthology
"High Desert Voices" and the Harvard publication "The Charles River Review." She is currently working on a new collection of poems based on the women Salvador Dali painted and a book about her most recent travels in Asia and Central America.

She continues to collect feathers, to be curious, questioning, pioneering and wild, and she hopes never to stop talking to the moon.

Friday, April 16, 2010

"How to Write a Political Poem" by Taylor Mali



You can bet money you're going to hear a political poem when a white poet starts singing "Amazing Grace," or a black poet begins with a Negro Spiritual tune; they won't finish the song, because, "Stop in the middle of a song that everyone knows and loves / This will give your poem a sense of urgency."

The best tip for anyone who wants to write a political poem is to read and listen to Taylor Mali's "How to Write a Political Poem" ... then not write that way.

A little satire is good for the soul. It makes us better writers.

How to Write a Political Poem
By Taylor Mali


However it begins, it's gotta be loud
and then it's gotta get a little bit louder.
Because this is how you write a political poem
and how you deliver it with power.

Mix current events with platitudes of empowerment.
Wrap up in rhyme or rhyme it up in rap until it sounds true.

Glare until it sinks in.

Because somewhere in Florida, votes are still being counted.
I said somewhere in Florida, votes are still being counted!

See, that's the Hook, and you gotta' have a Hook.
More than the look, it's the hook that is the most important part.
The hook has to hit and the hook's gotta fit.
Hook's gotta hit hard in the heart.

Because somewhere in Florida, votes are still being counted.

And Dick Cheney is peeing all over himself in spasmodic delight.
Make fun of politicians, it's easy, especially with Republicans
like Rudy Giuliani, Colin Powell, and . . . Al Gore.
Create fatuous juxtapositions of personalities and political philosophies
as if communism were the opposite of democracy,
as if we needed Darth Vader, not Ralph Nader.

Peep this: When I say "Call,"
you all say, "Response."

Call! Response! Call! Response! Call!

Amazing Grace, how sweet the—

Stop in the middle of a song that everyone knows and loves.
This will give your poem a sense of urgency.
Because there is always a sense of urgency in a political poem.
There is no time to waste!
Corruption doesn't have a curfew,
greed doesn't care what color you are
and the New York City Police Department
is filled with people who wear guns on their hips
and carry metal badges pinned over their hearts.
Injustice isn't injustice it's just in us as we are just in ice.
That's the only alienation of this alien nation
in which you either fight for freedom
or else you are free and dumb!

And even as I say this somewhere in Florida, votes are still being counted.

And it makes me wanna beat box!

Because I have seen the disintegration of gentrification
and can speak with great articulation
about cosmic constellations, and atomic radiation.
I've seen D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation
but preferred 101 Dalmations.
Like a cross examination, I will give you the explanation
of why SlamNation is the ultimate manifestation
of poetic masturbation and egotistical ejaculation.

And maybe they are still counting votes somewhere in Florida,
but by the time you get to the end of the poem it won't matter anymore.

Because all you have to do is close your eyes,
lower your voice, and end by saying:

the same line three times,
the same line three times,
the same line three times.


Taylor Mali is one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement and one of the few people in the world to have no job other than that of poet. Eloquent, accessible, passionate, and often downright hilarious, Mali studied drama in Oxford with members of The Royal Shakespeare Company and puts those skills of presentation to work in all his performances. He was one of the original poets to appear on the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry and was the "Armani-clad villain" of Paul Devlin's 1997 documentary film SlamNation.

Born in New York City into a family some of whose members have lived there since the early 1600s, Taylor Mali is an unapologetic WASP, making him a rare entity in spoken word, which is often considered to be an art form influenced by the inner city and dominated either by poets of color or those otherwise imbued with the spirit of hip-hop.

Mali is a vocal advocate of teachers and the nobility of teaching, having himself spent nine years in the classroom teaching everything from English and history to math and S.A.T. test preparation. He has performed and lectured for teachers all over the world, and his New Teacher Project has a goal of creating 1,000 new teachers through "poetry, persuasion, and perseverance."

He is the author of two books of poetry, The Last Time As We Are (Write Bloody Books 2009) and What Learning Leaves (Hanover 2002), and four CDs of spoken word. He received a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in 2001 to develop Teacher! Teacher! a one-man show about poetry, teaching, and math which won the jury prize for best solo performance at the 2001 Comedy Arts Festival.

Formerly president of Poetry Slam, Inc., the non-profit organization that oversees all poetry slams in North America, Taylor Mali makes his living entirely as a spoken-word and voiceover artist these days, traveling around the country performing and teaching workshops as well as doing occasional commercial voiceover work. He has narrated several books on tape, including The Great Fire (for which he won the Golden Earphones Award for children's narration).

Thursday, April 15, 2010

"Like Lilly Like Wilson" by Taylor Mali



I just spent Tuesday teaching poetry in Terrin Musbach's English and theater classes at Mohave High School in Bullhead City, thanks to an in with teacher and poet Mikel Weisser. Students ranged in age between 14 and 18, so Taylor Mali's famous slam poem, "Like Lilly Like Wilson" holds a particular resonance for me right nownot because of the use of filler words, but because of the lines, "And the eighth-grade mind is a beautiful thing / Like a new-born baby's face, you can often see it / change before your very eyes."

This poem carries similar elements as another Mali poem, "Totally like whatever, you know?"

As a standalone poem, its strength comes in using an everyday situation as a narrative to demonstrate the power of teaching someone a new way of thinking, essentially a transformation poem. The use of humor keeps the audience interested while the narrative structure allows the poet to teach the audience the same bit of knowledge vicariously through the vehicle of Lilly Wilson.

Like Lilly Like Wilson
By Taylor Mali


I'm writing the poem that will change the world,
and it's Lilly Wilson at my office door.
Lilly Wilson, the recovering like addict,
the worst I've ever seen.
So, like, bad the whole eighth grade
started calling her Like Lilly Like Wilson Like.
Until I declared my classroom a Like-Free Zone,
and she could not speak for days.

But when she finally did, it was to say,
Mr. Mali, this is . . . so hard.
Now I have to think before I . . . say anything.

Imagine that, Lilly.

It's for your own good.
Even if you don't like . . .
it.

I'm writing the poem that will change the world,
and it's Lilly Wilson at my office door.
Lilly is writing a research paper for me
about how homosexuals shouldn't be allowed
to adopt children.
I'm writing the poem that will change the world,
and it's Like Lilly Like Wilson at my office door.

She's having trouble finding sources,
which is to say, ones that back her up.
They all argue in favor of what I thought I was against.

And it took four years of college,
three years of graduate school,
and every incidental teaching experience I have ever had
to let out only,

Well, that's a real interesting problem, Lilly.
But what do you propose to do about it?
That's what I want to know.

And the eighth-grade mind is a beautiful thing;
Like a new-born baby's face, you can often see it
change before your very eyes.

I can't believe I'm saying this, Mr. Mali,
but I think I'd like to switch sides.

And I want to tell her to do more than just believe it,
but to enjoy it!
That changing your mind is one of the best ways
of finding out whether or not you still have one.
Or even that minds are like parachutes,
that it doesn't matter what you pack
them with so long as they open
at the right time.
O God, Lilly, I want to say
you make me feel like a teacher,
and who could ask to feel more than that?
I want to say all this but manage only,
Lilly, I am like so impressed with you!

So I finally taught somebody something,
namely, how to change her mind.
And learned in the process that if I ever change the world
it's going to be one eighth grader at a time.


Taylor Mali is one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement and one of the few people in the world to have no job other than that of poet. Eloquent, accessible, passionate, and often downright hilarious, Mali studied drama in Oxford with members of The Royal Shakespeare Company and puts those skills of presentation to work in all his performances. He was one of the original poets to appear on the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry and was the "Armani-clad villain" of Paul Devlin's 1997 documentary film SlamNation.

Born in New York City into a family some of whose members have lived there since the early 1600s, Taylor Mali is an unapologetic WASP, making him a rare entity in spoken word, which is often considered to be an art form influenced by the inner city and dominated either by poets of color or those otherwise imbued with the spirit of hip-hop.

Mali is a vocal advocate of teachers and the nobility of teaching, having himself spent nine years in the classroom teaching everything from English and history to math and S.A.T. test preparation. He has performed and lectured for teachers all over the world, and his New Teacher Project has a goal of creating 1,000 new teachers through "poetry, persuasion, and perseverance."

He is the author of two books of poetry, The Last Time As We Are (Write Bloody Books 2009) and What Learning Leaves (Hanover 2002), and four CDs of spoken word. He received a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in 2001 to develop Teacher! Teacher! a one-man show about poetry, teaching, and math which won the jury prize for best solo performance at the 2001 Comedy Arts Festival.

Formerly president of Poetry Slam, Inc., the non-profit organization that oversees all poetry slams in North America, Taylor Mali makes his living entirely as a spoken-word and voiceover artist these days, traveling around the country performing and teaching workshops as well as doing occasional commercial voiceover work. He has narrated several books on tape, including The Great Fire (for which he won the Golden Earphones Award for children's narration).

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

"The Crickets Have Arthritis" by Shane Koyczan



Shane Koyczan performs at the Words Aloud 4 Spoken Word Festival in Durham, Ontario, Canada, November 2007. DVDs of Words Aloud performances and interviews available at www.wordsaloud.ca

The Crickets Have Arthritis
By Shane Koyczan


it doesn’t matter why I was there, where the air is sterile and the sheets sting.
it doesn’t matter that I was hooked up to this thing that buzzed and beeped every time my heart leaped, like a man whose faith tells him:
gods hands are big enough to catch an airplane

or a world,

doesn’t matter that I was curled up like a fist protesting death,
or that every breath was either hard labor or hard time,
or that I’m either always too hot or too cold
it doesn’t matter because my hospital roommate wears star wars pajamas,
and he’s nine years old

His name is Louis

and I don’t have to ask what he’s got, the bald head with the skin and bones frame speaks volumes. The Gameboy and feather pillow booms like, they’re trying to make him feel at home ‘cuase he’s gonna be here a while

I manage a smile the first time I see him and it feels like the biggest lie I’ve ever told.
so I hold my breath
cuase I’m thinking any minute now he’s gonna call me on it
I hold my breath
cuase I’m scared of a fifty seven pound boy hooked to a machine, becuase he’s been watching me, and maybe I’ve got him pegged all wrong, like

maybe he’s bionic or some shit.
so I look away.

like I just made eye contact with a gang member who’s got a rap sheet the length of a lecture on dumb mistakes politicians have made. I look away like he’s gonna give me my life back he minute I’ve got something to trade, I damn near pull out my pack and say

Cigarette?

but my fear subsides in the moment I realize Louis is all about show and tell. he’s got everything from a shot gun shell to a crows foot and he can put them all in context like:

See, this is from a shooting range and

see, this is from a weird girl

I watch his hands curl around a cuff link and a tie tack and realize that every nick knack is a treasure and every treasure’s got a story and every time I think I can’t handle more he hits me with another story. says:

See, this is from my father. see, this is from my brother. see, this is from that weird girl. see this is from my mother. it took me two days to figure out that

that weird girl, is his sister.

took him about two hours today after she left for him to figure out he missed her.

they visit every day and stay well passed visiting hours. because for them that term doesn’t apply. but when they do leave Louis and I are left alone and he says the worst part about being sick is you get all the free ice cream you ask for. and he says the worst part about that is realizing that there’s

nothing more they can do for you. he says:

Ice Cream can’t make every thing ok.

and there’s no easy way of asking and I already know what he’s gonna say, but maybe he just needs to say it so I ask him any way. Are you scared? Louis doesn’t even lower his voice when he says

Fuck yeah.

I listen to a nine year old boy say the word Fuck, like he was a thirty year old man with a nose bleed being lowered into a shark tank, he’s got a right to it and if it takes this kid a curse word to help him get through it, I want to teach him to swear like the devil was sitting there taking notes with a pen and a pad but before I can forget that Louis is nine years old he says:

please don’t tell my dad.

he asks me if I believe in angels,

and before I realize I don’t have the heart to tell him, I tell him Not lately, and I just lay there waiting for him to hate me. but he doesn’t know how to, so he never does.

Louis loves like a man who lived in a time before god gave religion to men and left it to them to figure out what hate was.

He never greets me with silence. only smiles. and a patience I’ve never seen in someone who knows they’re dying. and I’m trying so hard not to remind him, I’ll be out of here in a couple of days, smoking cigarettes and taking my life for granted. and he’ll still be planted in this bed like a flower that refuses to grow, I’ve been with him for five days and all I really know is Louis loves to pull feathers out of his pillow, and watch them float to the ground, almost as if he was the philosopher inside of the scientist ready to say that its gravity that’s been getting us down. but the truth is

there’s not enough miracles to go around kid,

and there’s too many people petitioning god for the winning lotto ticket. and for every answered prayer there’s a cricket with arthritis, and the only reason we can’t find answers is the search party didn’t invite us, and Louis right now the crickets have arthritis

so there is no music.

no symphony of nature swelling to crescendos, as if we bent halo’s into melodies that could keep rhythm with the way our hearts beat.
so we must meet silence with the same level of noise that the parents of dying nine year old boys make when they take liberties in talking with heaven. we must shout until we shatter in our own vibrations then let our lives

echo, and grow
echo, and grow
echo, and grow

Grow distant.

grow distant enough to know that as far as our efforts go we don’t always get a reply. but I swear to whatever god I can find in the time I have left I’m gonna remember you kid. gonna tell your story as often as every story you told me, and every time I tell it I’ll say see,

there’s bravery in this world

there’s 6.5 billion people curled up like fists protesting death, but every breath we take has to be given back, a nine year old boy taught me that.

so hold your breath. the same way you’d hold a pen when writing thank you letters on your skin to every tree that gave you that breath to hold.
then let it go. as if you understand something about getting old and having to give back
let it go like a laugh attack in the middle of really good sex

the black eye will be worth it.

because what is your night worth without a story to tell, and why wield a word like worth if you’ve got nothing to sell. people drop pennies down a wishing well as if the cost of a desire is equal to that of a thought. but if you’ve got expectations expect others have bought your exact same dream for the price of the hard work, hang in, hold on mentality, like I accept any challenge so challenge me
like

I’ve brought a knife to this gun fight, but other night I mugged a mountain so bring that shit I’ve had practice.

Louis and I cracked this world wide open and found the prize inside because we never lied to ourselves, never told ourselves it would be easy or undemanding.
so we sing in our own vibration and dare angels to eavesdrop and stop midflight to pluck feathers from their wings and write demands on gods hands

take the time to catch you

so that even if god doesn’t, it wasn’t because we didn’t try.

I don’t often believe in angels, but on the day I left Louis pulled a feather from his pillow and said this is for you,

I half expected him to say

See, this is the first one I grew.

© Shane Koyczan

Shane L. Koyczan (born 22 May 1976) is a Canadian poet and writer. Born in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Koyczan grew up in Penticton, British Columbia.

In 2000, he became the first Canadian to win the Individual Championship title at the U.S. National Poetry Slam. Together with Mighty Mike McGee and C.R. Avery, he is the co-founder of spoken word, "talk rock" trio, Tons of Fun University, aka TOFU. In August 2007, Koyczan and his work were the subject of an episode of the television documentary series "Heart of a Poet," produced by Canadian filmmaker Maureen Judge for broadcaster Bravo!.

Koyczan has published two books, poetry collection "Visiting Hours," and "Stickboy," a novel in verse. Visiting Hours was selected by both the Guardian and Globe and Mail for their 2005 Best Books of the Year lists.

Koyczan’s "We Are More" and Ivan Bielinski’s "La première fois", commissioned by the Canadian Tourism Commission, were unveiled at Canada Day festivities on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on 1 July 2007. Koyczan performed a variation on his piece at the Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Koyczan also collaborated on Vancouver-based musician Dan Mangan's Roboteering EP on the track "Tragic Turn of Events - Move Pen Move."