Map of Poetry Slams in US, Canada

Google Map started by the Fort Wayne Poetry Slam to try and compile information for slam venues across the United States and Canada.

For more information, contact Myles Taylor

Last Sedona Poetry Slam of 2024-25 season on Saturday, May 31

The Sedona Poetry Slam has reached the final slam of the season before the summer break Saturday, May 31. Performance poets will bring high-energy, competitive spoken word to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m.

The Last Slam of the 2024-25 Season

If you have told your friends you were going to attend a poetry slam this year, but haven't yet, this is your last chance to see what you've been anticipating.

A poetry slam is like a series of high-energy, three-minute one-person plays, judged by the audience. Slam poetry is an art form that allows written page poets to share their work alongside theatrical performers, hip-hop artists and lyricists. Poets come from as far away as Phoenix, Tucson, Prescott and Flagstaff, competing against local poets from Sedona and Cottonwood, college poets from Northern Arizona University and youth poets from Verde Valley high schools.

 All types of poetry are welcome on the stage, from street-wise hip-hop and narrative performance poems, to political rants and introspective confessionals. Any poem is a "slam" poem if performed in a competition. All poets get three minutes per round to entertain and inspire the audience with their creativity.

Open Slam

Anyone can sign up to compete in the slam for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize. To compete in the slam, poets will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted. The poets are judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam.

Email foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up early to compete or by the Friday before the slam or at the door the day of the slam. Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive.

The Mary D. Fisher Theatre is located at 2030 W. SR 89A, Suite A-3, in West Sedona. Tickets are $12 in advance or $15 at the door. For tickets, call 282-1177 or visit SedonaFilmFestival.org.

The prize money is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporters Jeanne and Jim Freeland.

For more information, visit sedonafilmfestival.com or foxthepoet.blogspot.com.

For a full list of slam poetry events in Arizona, visit azpoet.com.

What is Poetry Slam?

Founded at the Green Mill Tavern in Chicago in 1984 by Marc Smith, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport designed to get people who would otherwise never go to a poetry reading excited about the art form when it becomes a high-energy competition. Poetry slams are judged by five randomly chosen members of the audience who assign numerical value to individual poets' contents and performances.

Poetry slam has become an international artistic sport, with more than 100 major poetry slams in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe. Slam poets have opened at the Winter Olympics, performed at the White House and at the United Nations General Assembly and were featured on "Russell Simmons' Def Poets" on HBO.

Sedona has sent four-poet teams to represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., Boston, Cambridge, Mass., Oakland, Calif., Decatur, Ga., Denver and Chicago.

Sedona Poetry Slam hosts penultimate competition and BlackBerry Peach qualifier on Saturday, May 3

The penultimate installment of a series is often one the best, and that will be the case as the Sedona Poetry Slam returns for its penultimate slam of the season Saturday, May 3. Performance poets will bring high-energy, competitive spoken word to Sedona's Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m.

It will also be the Sedona Poetry Slam's qualifier for the BlackBerry Peach state poetry slam with the top three poets representing Sedona in the state slam. 

A poetry slam is like a series of high-energy, three-minute one-person plays, judged by the audience. Slam poetry is an art form that allows written page poets to share their work alongside theatrical performers, hip-hop artists and lyricists. Poets come from as far away as Phoenix, Tucson, Prescott and Flagstaff, competing against local poets from Sedona and Cottonwood, college poets from Northern Arizona University and youth poets from Verde Valley high schools. 

All types of poetry are welcome on the stage, from street-wise hip-hop and narrative performance poems, to political rants and introspective confessionals. Any poem is a "slam" poem if performed in a competition. All poets get three minutes per round to entertain and inspire the audience with their creativity.

Open Slam

Anyone can sign up to compete in the slam for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize. To compete in the slam, poets will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted. The poets are judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam.

Email foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up early to compete or by the Friday before the slam or at the door the day of the slam. Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive.

The Mary D. Fisher Theatre is located at 2030 W. SR 89A, Suite A-3, in West Sedona. Tickets are $12 in advance or $15 at the door. For tickets, call 282-1177 or visit SedonaFilmFestival.org.

The last poetry slam of the season will be on Saturday, May 31.

The prize money is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporters Jeanne and Jim Freeland.

For more information, visit sedonafilmfestival.com or foxthepoet.blogspot.com.

For a full list of slam poetry events in Arizona, visit azpoet.com.

BlackBerry Peach

The BlackBerry Peach Arizona finals will be held Saturday, May 16, at the PHX Poetry Slam, Heritage Headquarters, 515 E Grant St., Phoenix, hosted by Ben "B-Jam" Gardea. 

There will be 15 poets in the state slam with the three from the Prescott Poetry Slam already selected on March 16 and the Mesa slam chosen on March 22. The long-running Flagstaff Poetry Slam will select its poets on April 16 and the home Phoenix Poetry Slam choses its poets on April 18.

The Sedona Poetry Slam on May 3 promises to bring some of the best poets in the state hoping to win the last three berths in the competition.

All 15 poets will compete in the first round, with five in the second and the top three in the third. Doors open 7 p.m., show starts 8 p.m.

The top three poets from that competition will be sponsored to compete at the BlackBerry Peach National Poetry Slam held July 23 to 27th in Albuquerque, N.M., hosts by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.

All poets at the finals will receive a trophy for being finalists. 

What is Poetry Slam?

Founded at the Green Mill Tavern in Chicago in 1984 by Marc Smith, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport designed to get people who would otherwise never go to a poetry reading excited about the art form when it becomes a high-energy competition. Poetry slams are judged by five randomly chosen members of the audience who assign numerical value to individual poets' contents and performances.

Poetry slam has become an international artistic sport, with more than 100 major poetry slams in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe. Slam poets have opened at the Winter Olympics, performed at the White House and at the United Nations General Assembly and were featured on "Russell Simmons' Def Poets" on HBO.

Sedona has sent four-poet teams to represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., Boston, Cambridge, Mass., Oakland, Calif., Decatur, Ga., Denver and Chicago. 

Haiku Death Match at Heritage Square on April 13, as part of the Northern Arizona Book Festival

 

The Sedona Poetry Slam and Northern Arizona Book Festival are co-hosting a head-to-head Haiku Death Match at Heritage Square on Saturday, April 12, as part of the 2025 Northern Arizona Book Festival. The event features cash prizes for first, second and third place.

Ed Mabrey

Followed by a featured performance by Ed Mabrey, the greatest poet in the history of Poetry Slam — 4 World Championships, 7 Regional Championships, and over 500 wins. An NAACP Image Award Nominee, Ed's been on TV One, as well as ABC, FOX, HBO, CNN, Crackle, CBS and NBC. 

Ed has performed at over 400 colleges. A Cave Canem fellow, Watering Hole graduate fellow and Scioto Retreat Cohort.

Ed is a Pushcart nominee and was commissioned to craft a speech encompassing the Freedom Award recipients for 2017-2021 on behalf of the National Civil Rights Museum. Ed is a choreopoet, screenwriter, and actor. Most recently, Ed is a 2023-2024 Grammy Voting Member and proud member of Phi Theta Kappa.

Haiku (俳句) is a form of Japanese poetry consisting of 17 syllables in three metrical phrases of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.

Japanese haiku typically contain a kigo, or seasonal reference, and a kireji or verbal caesura. 

In Japanese, haiku are traditionally printed in a single vertical line, while haiku in English usually appear in three lines (5-7-5 syllables), to parallel the three metrical phrases of Japanese haiku.

A Haiku Death Match is a competitive poetry duel that is a subgenre of poetry slam. The Haiku Death Match is a prominent feature at the annual National Poetry Slam, replete with full costume for the host.

Slam haiku used in a Haiku Death Match is far simpler than traditional Japanese style haiku: The kigo and kireji can be omitted.

Slam haiku are simply three or fewer lines of exactly 17 syllables, no more, no less. Slam haiku can be anything from a single 17-syllable sing line or simply 17 words.

"Old Pond’’ by Matsuo Bashō [1644-1694] — a haiga in his own handwriting

Matsuo Bashō [1644-1694], born Matsuo Kinsaku, later known as Matsuo Chūemon Munefusa was the most famous Japanese poet of the Edo period. Bashō's most famous haiku:

古池や 

蛙飛び込む 

水の音

koike ya

kaeru tobikomu

mizu no on

Translated by Robert Hass as

Old pond…

a frog jumps in

water’s sound

やがて死ぬ

けしきは見え

ず蝉の声

yagate shinu 

keshiki wa miezu 

semi no koe

Translated by David G. Lanoue as:

The cry of the cicada

Gives us no sign

That presently it will die.

A standard Haiku Death Match is conducted thus:

⏹The host randomly draws the names of two poets, known as haikusters, from the pool of competitors.

⏹The haikusters adorn headbands of two colors: Red and Not-Red (white).

⏹Red Haikuster and Not-Red Haikuster bow to each other to demostrate they are friendly and that a Haiku Death Match is ultimately a silly thing.

⏹Red Haikuster goes first.

⏹The Red Haikuster reads his or her haiku twice. The audience does not clap or make noise (usually, though, they laugh or vocalize, but, of course, we must pretend that this is completely unacceptable).

⏹The Not-Red Haikuster reads his or her haiku twice. Again, the audience does not clap or make noise.

⏹The host waits for the three judges to make their choice for winner, then signals them to hold aloft their Red or Not-Red flag.

⏹Simple majority (3-0 or 2-1) determines the winner.

⏹The host asks the audience to demonstrate “the sound of one hand clapping,” i.e., silence, then “the sound of two hands clapping,” at which point they can finally applaud. The mock ceremony involving the audience is half the fun.

⏹The winning haikuster of that round then goes first.

Depending on the round, the winner will be best 3 of 5, 4 of 7, best 5 of 9, etc., of a number determined beforehand for each round.

After the duel, Red Haikuster and Not-Red Haikuster bow to each other and shake hands. The next duel begins.

Haiku by Matsuo Bashō:
"Quietly, quietly,
yellow mountain roses fall –
sound of the rapids"

Rules for the Haiku Death Match:

⏹Register: E-mail at foxthepoet@yahoo.com

⏹Participation: Anyone can compete.

⏹No Titles: Haikusters shall not read the title of the haiku. Just the 17-syllable haiku itself.

⏹While some haiku are merely three lines, Death Match Haiku must be 17 syllables exactly.

⏹Haikusters shall read the haiku twice, first for initial recitation, the second time for proper digestion. 

⏹Originality: Poets must be the sole authors of the haiku they use in competition. Plagiarized or others' haiku are grounds for disqualification. We all love Matsuo Bashō, but he’s 300 years too dead to compete.

⏹Preparation: Poets can have haiku written beforehand or write them in their head while at the mic. As long as the haiku are 17 syllables, we don’t care how, when or from where the haiku originates. 

Poets can read from the page, book, journal, notepad, smartphone, etc. 

⏹Rounds: Will be determined by the number of haikusters who sign up to compete.

⏹Quantity of haiku needed: Depends on the number of rounds. 30 haiku will likely be enough for poets who push rounds to the last haiku needed and go all the rounds, but 20 haiku might be enough. 50 to 100 gives haikusters enough material to be flexible in competition. Most veteran haikusters have several hundred to compete with.

If you run out of pre-written haiku, you can make them up on the mic and count on your fingers; that's perfectly fine.

⏹Adult themes and language. Remember that this is a live event and content of haiku will not be known ahead of time, but the event takes place at Heritage Square at a family friendly event. Please respect the audience, There may be children present so you may have to deal with their parents afterward. 

⏹Judges: Three random people at the event will be selected as the judges. Using the "fluid rule," the judges cannot share bodily fluids with any of the haikusters (i.e., no parents, siblings, blood relatives, children, spouses or lovers) and hope that the judges are not related and the event is fair. We will ask the haikusters before the Death Match if that rule applies to any judges before the event begins.

⏹Draw: We will pull two names from a hat containing the names of the competitors before each duel. If your name is drawn, you must haiku in that duel.

⏹Third Place: When we get to the final four haikusters, the top two will advance. The two defeated haikusters will then compete for third place, and the cash prize, before the top two haikusters compete for first place and second place.

This sheet of kaishi writing paper is inscribed with verse by Japan’s most famous haiku poet, Matsuo Bashō, and one of his pupils in the teacher’s own handwriting. When this work was first publically displayed at Seattle Asian Art Museum in 2015, it created a small sensation among literary specialists in Japan because not only were the Bashō poems recorded here previously unknown, the work must date to relatively early in his career as a poet, before he turned 40. In the West, it would be the equivalent of discovering a manuscript with previously unpublished poems by (Bashō’s contemporary) John Milton in his own hand. At the time of the discovery, the Bashō expert professor Tamaki Tsukasa stated that the handwriting, seal, and signature could also be authenticated as genuine.
Credit: Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, Gift of Mary and Cheney Cowles, 2018, The Met

What’s the Best Strategy to Win a Haiku Death Match?

⏹A winning haikuster is flexible.

⏹If your opponent reads a serious or deep haiku, read one that is more serious or more profound, or go on the opposite tack and read something funny.

⏹If your opponent reads a funny haiku, read one that is funnier, or go on the opposite tack and read something serious or deep.

⏹If your opponent makes fun of you, make fun of yourself even bigger or make fun of them. A good head-to-head haiku can work wonders and often wins a Haiku duel. 

⏹If you’re on stage and you get an idea for a haiku, feel free to write it down immediately. That might be the next round’s haiku that wins you the duel.

⏹Have a good time. Even if don't get past the first round, it's still a great time for all.

⏹You get to read the haiku twice, so let that play into how you read it. You may want to read it verbatim with the same inflection or intonation, or you may want to emphasize a different portion of the haiku the second time. You may also use the repetition to your advantage and write a haiku about repeating yourself.

Poet Matsuo Bashō meets two farmers celebrating the mid-autumn moon festival in an 1891 print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi from "Hundred Aspects of the Moon." The haiku reads:
“Since the crescent moon,
I have been waiting
for tonight.”

The Robert Spiess Memorial 2012 Haiku Awards

nautical chart

I touch the depth

of my mother’s ashes

— Scott Mason, First Prize

slave quarters ...

the shapes of their shadows

in this dust

— Duro Jaiye, Second Prize

shades of blue ...

the deer’s remaining eye

cradled by bone

— Susan Constable, Third Prize

winter dusk

my grief released

from the crow’s throat

— Margaret Chula, Honorable Mention

formation of geese —

a log opens

to the woodsman’s maul

— Michele L. Harvey, Honorable Mention

I seem to be

an intermittent shadow . . .

summer clouds

— Kirsty Karkow, Honorable Mention

“The New Horizon” by Christopher Fox Graham

I performed two poems at Lowell Observatory's annual I ❤ Pluto Festival Saturday, Feb. 15, at the Orpheum Theatre. The featured guests were Adam Nimoy, a television director and son of the late actor Leonard Nimoy; Alan Stern, Ph.D., Principal Investigator of the New Horizons Mission to Pluto; comet-hunter David Levy, who co-discovered Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (D/1993 F2) with Flagstaff scientists Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker.

This was the first of the two poems I wrote for the event. It pairs as a trilogy with my 2012 poem "Dear Pluto" about the planet and my 2016 poem "Clyde Tombaugh" about the planet's discoverer, who first viewed the planet from Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff.

Dr. Alan Stern emailed me after the I ❤ Pluto Festival:

"Dear Christopher,

Thanks a bunch for these, they are wonderful pieces of art and I am grateful for you sending them so I can share in our team.

Hope to see you again in Flag someday (and hopefully before Pluto’s 100th)!

Very best,

-Alan"

“The New Horizon”

by Christopher Fox Graham

amid the infinite dark

400 billion points of light burn —

93 million miles from one unremarkably ordinary star,

the first snap-crack of amino acids

move and grow, 

seeking something beyond 

the first horizon 

of its salt pond tide pool

the drive to expand, experience, explore

written at inception into RNA

the hero’s journey inscribed in all cells since

we’re here, now, because “here” wasn’t enough

our ancestors sought what’s over next horizon

the first fish to set foot on land 

the first therapsid to walk upright

the first mammal to emerge in the shadow of the last dinosaur

the first primate to step onto the savannah

the first human family to leave the only tribe 

to start a new one

the first caravan to cross the desert

the first ship to leave the safety of shore

the first astronaut to lose sight of the Earth

beyond the edge of the dark side of the Moon

mystery, adventure, fate, fortune and future

are always over the hopeful horizon 

"Earthrise," taken on Dec. 24, 1968, by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders

this here, this sphere of home, 

this pale blue dot suspended in a sunbeam

is all we know, every human being who ever was, 

every hunter, forager, peasant, king, inventor, explorer, 

"superstar", "supreme leader," hero, coward, 

dreamer, destroyer, saint, sinner, genocide and miracle

every mother and father, broken heart and forever love story,

every living thing 

from that first cell

to your hopeful child

is here, 

on this grain of sand in the dark

the breadth of my palm from our singular sun

"The Pale Blue Dot"

but out there are more worlds with unseen horizons

so we peer into the dark

unafraid of what we may find 

cast out our messages in bottles

to send photos of the spheres 

and their untouched horizons back home

so we can wonder at their beauty

but out along the edge

beyond our brother Mars,

the great Jupiter 

and ringed Saturn

fraternal twins Neptune and Uranus

is the ninth horizon

discovered by a Kanas boy 

who called Flagstaff home

Clyde Tombaugh [Feb. 4, 1906-Jan. 17, 1997]

that far out, the sun that made life possible here

is a point of light,

but barely much more

though it holds Pluto in orbit like a prodigal son

astronomers-turned-archers 

sent New Horizons to see Clyde Tombaugh’s discovery —

we sent a piece of him, too

his ashes in a capsule 

no bigger 

than a thumb

132524 APL (2002 JF56)

it waved hello to asteroid 132524 APL,

swam through the swirling orbits of Jupiter’s 95 moons

like a sober freshman navigating a nightclub dance floor

with a sweaty fake ID, 

hoping not to be noticed,

popping paparazzi photos 

of Io, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa

Galilean moons Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto

then, hooked by the weight, 

turned left, 

passing the orbits of the outer planets

to the final horizon

to this 

mote of dust

New Horizons passes through the Pluto system at about 30,800 mph, passing within 40,000 miles of Pluto on Monday, July 13, 2015.

in the blink of an eye

Robin Hood could loose an arrow into a bullseye

and send a second

to split the first at a 100 paces

but teams of technicians on earth

could split the orbit

of Pluto and Charon

at 30,000 miles per hour

from 2 billion miles away 

closer than Nix, Kerberos, Hydra and Styx

had ever been

We named everything — 

maculae after the gods of death 

who rule permanent horizons 

Cadejo, Meng Po and Morgoth

fluctus after those 

who journeyed to the underworlds 

of a dozen mythologies,

Mpobe, Dioynsus, Xanthius

plains after satellites 

Sputnik, Rosetta, and Ranger, Chandrayaan, Hiten and Yutu 

who broke the bonds of earth,

for the dreamers uncontent to be held back by the old horizons

we named the hills and mountains 

Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay, 

Zheng He, Bessie Coleman, Muhammad al-Idrisi,
Junko Tabei, Juan Sebastián Elcano,
Thor Heyerdahl and the Wright brothers

craters and regions after those 

who stared into the abyss

Percival Lowell, Viktor Safronov, Michael Belton

free from nationality, 

all sharing a singular horizon

we saved the welcoming heart 

for Tombaugh

the boy whose heart
kept New Horizons warm in the dark

warm, and fundamentally human

because “here” was never enough

beyond Pluto

we sought one last horizon at Arrokoth 

the "Ultima Thule" on our map

Arrokoth, informally known as Ulitma Thule.

now 4.6 billion miles from a lost horizon

it will never see again

is our message in a bottle

proof that “here” is never enough

for a cell or a species

our New Horizons are infinite

Departure shot of Pluto by New Horizons, showing Pluto's atmosphere backlit by the Sun. consists mainly of nitrogen, with minor amounts of methane and carbon monoxide. The blue color is close to what a human eye would have seen, and is caused by layers of haze in the atmosphere 

Notes:

"Earthrise" was taken on Dec. 24, 1968, by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders at 16:39:39.3 UTC. The Apollo 8 crew consisted of Anders, Frank Borman and James Lovell. Using photo mosaics and elevation data from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, this video commemorates the 45th anniversary of Apollo 8's historic flight by recreating the moment when the crew first saw and photographed the Earth rising from behind the Moon. Narrator Andrew Chaikin, author of A Man on the Moon, sets the scene for a three-minute visualization of the view from both inside and outside the spacecraft accompanied by the onboard audio of the astronauts:

Anders used a highly modified Hasselblad 500 EL camera with an electric drive. The camera had a simple sighting ring, rather than the standard reflex viewfinder, and was loaded with a 70 mm film magazine containing custom Ektachrome film developed by Kodak. Anders had been photographing the lunar surface with a 250 mm lens; the lens was subsequently used for the Earthrise images. While the image is best known with the moon horizon on the bottom of the image and the Earth rising above, it was actually shot as it appears here, in line with the lunar north pole. It was later rotated 95 degrees to place the moon horizon at the bottom of the photo.

"The Pale Blue Dot" is a photograph of Earth taken Feb. 14, 1990, by NASA’s Voyager 1 at a distance of 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from the Sun. The image inspired the title of scientist Carl Sagan's book, "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space," in which he wrote: "Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam," which is sampled and paraphrased in the poem.

132524 APL (2002 JF56): The two "spots" in this image are two images of asteroid 132524 APL (2002 JF56) taken on June 11, bottom, at a distance of 3.36 million kilometers, and June 12, 2006, the top, taken at 1.34 million kilometers. The asteroid is about 2.5 kilometers in diameter.

Galilean Moons: The montage of Jupiter's four large and diverse Galilean satellites as seen by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager on the New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby of Jupiter in late February 2007. The four moons are, from left to right: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. The images have been scaled to represent the true relative sizes of the four moons and are arranged in their order from Jupiter.

Robin Hood: If the 4.8 billion-kilometer distance to Pluto when New Horizons passed through was reduced to 100 paces (200 to 400 feet depending on stride, or ~100 yards, i.e., the length of a football field), the 40,000-mile (64,373 km) distance between Pluto and New Horizons when it passed within 40,000 miles would be 1.22 millimeters. On that scale, the 2.7-meter New Horizons probe would be 2 nanometers, smaller than the diameter of a strand of DNA.

486958 Arrokoth: (2014 MU69) or Ultima Thule is a trans-Neptunian Kuiper belt object. Arrokoth became the farthest and most primitive object in the Solar System visited by a spacecraft whenNew Horizons conducted a flyby on Jan. 1, 2019. It is made of two lobes, a smaller "walnut" and a larger "pancake." The two conjoined lobes indicate Arrokoth used to be two separate bodies that stuck together after a gentle, slow-speed collision. The Latin "Ultima Thule" means "farthest Thule," a semi-mythical place in Greek and Roman mythology located in the far north, usually an island, possibly Iceland, the British Isles, the Shetland Isles or the Orkney Islands.

Sedona Poetry Slam at Mary D. Fisher Theatre on Saturday, March 15

  

The Sedona Poetry Slam proudly poets to the stage on Saturday, March 15, as performance poets bringing high-energy, competitive spoken word to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m.

A poetry slam is like a series of high-energy, three-minute one-person plays, judged by the audience. Slam poetry is an art form that allows written page poets to share their work alongside theatrical performers, hip-hop artists and lyricists. Poets come from as far away as Phoenix, Tucson, Prescott and Flagstaff, competing against local poets from Sedona and Cottonwood, college poets from Northern Arizona University and youth poets from Verde Valley high schools. All types of poetry are welcome on the stage, from street-wise hip-hop and narrative performance poems, to political rants and introspective confessionals. Any poem is a "slam" poem if performed in a competition. All poets get three minutes per round to entertain and inspire the audience with their creativity.

Open Slam

Anyone can sign up to compete in the slam for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize. To compete in the slam, poets will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted. The poets are judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam.

Email foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up early to compete or by the Friday before the slam or at the door the day of the slam. Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive.

The Mary D. Fisher Theatre is located at 2030 W. SR 89A, Suite A-3, in West Sedona. Tickets are $12 in advance or $15 at the door. For tickets, call 282-1177 or visit SedonaFilmFestival.org.

The next poetry slams will be on Saturdays, April 5, May 3 and finally on May 31.

The prize money is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporters Jeanne and Jim Freeland.

For more information, visit sedonafilmfestival.com or foxthepoet.blogspot.com.

For a full list of slam poetry events in Arizona, visit azpoet.com.

What is Poetry Slam?

Founded at the Green Mill Tavern in Chicago in 1984 by Marc Smith, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport designed to get people who would otherwise never go to a poetry reading excited about the art form when it becomes a high-energy competition. Poetry slams are judged by five randomly chosen members of the audience who assign numerical value to individual poets' contents and performances.

Poetry slam has become an international artistic sport, with more than 100 major poetry slams in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe. Slam poets have opened at the Winter Olympics, performed at the White House and at the United Nations General Assembly and were featured on "Russell Simmons' Def Poets" on HBO.

Sedona has sent four-poet teams to represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., Boston, Cambridge, Mass., Oakland, Calif., Decatur, Ga., Denver and Chicago. 

“The Most Human” (with sincere apologies to Adam Nimoy)

I performed two poems at Lowell Observatory's annual I ❤ Pluto Festival Saturday, Feb. 15, at the Orpheum Theatre. The featured guests were Adam Nimoy, a television director and son of the late actor Leonard Nimoy; Alan Stern, Ph.D., Principal Investigator of the New Horizons Mission to Pluto; comet-hunter David Levy, who co-discovered Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (D/1993 F2) with Flagstaff scientists Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker.

This was the second of the two poems I wrote for the event. Adam Nimoy gave me standing ovation as I left the stage. I'm so glad he enjoyed this poem about his dad.

Adam Nimoy emailed me after the festival:

"Thank you for all of this, Christopher. Very thoughtful, thought provoking, and just simply well said.

A fitting tribute to a man and an icon both of whom have become so much a part of our collective psyche.

LLAP,

Adam"

“The Most Human”

(with sincere apologies to Adam Nimoy)

by Christopher Fox Graham

“Space: the final frontier”

urged us to look beyond this earth

upwards

to trek across the stars

to contemplate what’s beyond the event horizon

of Doomsday Machine black holes

wonder, awestruck at the Menagerie

of metronomic pulsars

of sapphire-amethyst nebulae

stretching across light years 

to go where no man has gone before

Mercury, Gemini and Apollo brought men

to the edge of space and beyond

but before Armstrong set foot on the moon

we were already among the stars

as silent passengers aboard our 

Enterprise

This model of the starship Enterprise was used in the original 1966-1969 "Star Trek" TV show, donated to the National Air and Space Museum in 1974.

to shorten impossible distances,

we warped space itself

for the sake of plot 

and beamed down to worlds

we will never reach

never see in our lifetime

on this side of the screen

the Red Scare

Japanese Internment camps

and Segregation weren’t yesterdays

but ancient history

sins forgiven, but never forgotten

the Enemy Within, a Balance of Terror

between human nature and our better angels

we Let That past Be Our Last Battlefield

understanding "without followers, evil cannot spread" 

and formed a United Federation

of planets and crew

the future was now

and now was history, 

Pavel Chekov navigated the course

Hikaru Sulu helmed the ship

Nyota Uhura spoke unsilenced for them all

Montgomery Scott could work miracles down below

amid redshirts 

who deaths were never statistics

but revelations that danger

hides amid the stars

we could remain safe here

trapped on This Side of Paradise

in All Our Yesterdays 

but this fragile starship Earth,

is a City on the Edge of Forever,

and the Devil is in the Dark

so we go boldly 

to seek strange new worlds,

new life and new civilizations

ethos, pathos, logos commanding in trinity

James Kirk the spirit,

Bones McCoy the heart 

and Spock the mind

Crew of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 in 2266: Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery "Scotty" Scott [James Doohan], Ensign Pavel Chekov [Walter Koenig], Lt. Cmdr./Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy [DeForest Kelley], nurse Christine Chapel [Majel Barrett], Captain James T. Kirk [William Shatner], Lt. Nyota Uhura [Nichelle Nichols], Cmdr. Spock [Leonard Nimoy] and Lt. Hikaru Sulu [George Takei], from left

passion and compassion

can’t survive long 

with death outside the bulkheads

only cold Vulcan logic could rationalize 

that the needs of the many 

outweigh the needs of the few

or the one

Spock was too human to be Vulcan,

and too Vulcan to be human,

a exile son of two worlds

fully from neither

fully from both

Photo from "Star Trek: Spock's Entire Prime Universe Timeline,Explained" ScreenRant

with pointed ears that marked him as “other,”

Spock mirrored us to ourselves

wondered what made us human

questioned what we took for granted

pushed against illogical behaviors

we accept without question

“logic is the beginning of wisdom, 

not the end”

the old Vulcan proverb says

“only Nixon could go to China”

and only Leonard Nimoy could be Spock

Mr. Nimoy,

you, too, were of two worlds

an exile son of the old 

but a citizen of the new

fully from neither 

but fully from both

your grandfather, the adventurer, 

left behind the ghosts of the old nations

came to this America, 

the mother of exiles

this safe shore for the tempest-tossed

your parents fled a shtetl in Russia

to escape pogroms and Cossack raids

your father, walking across the border to Poland

your mother, smuggled out in a hay wagon

you were born in Boston’s West End, 

speaking Yiddish with your grandmother

keeping Kosher in a city of gentiles

with rough accents and strange customs

but a sky full of the same stars

they arrived as aliens, 

and became citizens

you went to Hollywood 

and became an alien

a bridge between past and present

telling tales from the future

not burdened by history

not bound to earth

you forged Spock, 

making him more you than Roddenberry

maintaining character between shoots

the voice of reason

emotions restrained

logical, rational, distant from the chaos

you transformed a priestly blessing from synagogue

into the Vulcan salute

mainstreaming a childhood memory 

of your orthodox upbringing

into the American melting pot 

“Live Long and Prosper” a shibboleth

so we nerds and fans 

Trekkies and Trekkers,

may know each other by it

you, Mr. Nimoy as Mr. Spock,

became a symbol for NASA and astronomers

who wore pointed ears to Star Trek conventions 

after weeks studying the cosmos

when Spock fell at the Battle of the Mutara Nebula

his death shook two galaxies

sacrificing himself to save the ship and the crew

dying as he lived

his final words:

“I have been... 

and always shall be... 

your friend”

said to Kirk, but meant for all of us

you and Spock speaking as one

and you are our friend, Mr. Nimoy,

even if only met through the screen

Hollywood cast and Starfleet crew

brought Spock back,

McCoy lost his mind holding your katra

Kirk lost his son, his ship, his command

the crew destroyed a planet

destroyed the Enterprise

“Because the needs of the one... “

“outweigh the needs of the many”

and your fascinating story was not yet over

neither in time 

nor in timeline

true friendship transcends death

The cast on the set of "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," in 1991, the last film where the original crew appeared as a group.

your final words, off screen, Mr. Nimoy,

were your blessing, LLAP

“Live Long and Prosper”

fully human, fully Vulcan

even at the end

you gave yourself,

to give us Spock

You did not feel this sacrifice a vain or empty one, 

and we will not debate your profound wisdom at these proceedings 

Of our friend

We can only say this: 

Of all the souls we have encountered in our travels, 

yours was the most ... 

human

External Links:

"The Most Human: Reconciling with My Father, Leonard Nimoy," a new memoir by Adam Nimoy.

"765874" by OTOY

(It's best to just watch this four-part series and not ask any questions about how they were made until you finish, if at all. Just accept these pieces as they are, as high art, as filmmaking, as storytelling, then watch them and walk away satisfied.

If you are curious about how and why they were made, and the tremendous work and love that went into them, the story is amazing)

   

 "765874 - Memory Wall" by OTOY

   

 "765874 - Regeneration" by OTOY

   

 "765874 - Unification" by OTOY 

Kirk and Spock get the final goodbye they never had on screen.

 

Leonard Nimoy's Oral History from the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass.

"Sur­viv­ing Leonard Nimoy’s Super­hu­man Salute"

Lowell Observatory honored me with an asteroid: 29722 Chrisgraham (1999 AQ23) after the I ❤ Pluto Festival

My friend, Kevin Schindler, presenting me with the map of the orbit of asteroid 29722 Chrisgraham (1999 AQ23) on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. Kevin first invited me to perform at I ❤ Pluto Festival in 2023, then again in 2024. This year, he told me Alan Stern, Ph.D. from the New Horizons mission to Pluto, and Adam Nimoy were going to be the guests and asked if I wanted to write two poems, so I wrote two new pieces "The New Horizon" and "The Most Human," which I debuted at the festival. (Note Kevin's custom Pluto tie).

Arizona State Rep. Justin Wilmeth [District 2], Astronomy magazine editor-in-chief David Eicher, comet hunter David Levy and Christopher Fox Graham at Lowell Observatory with the map of the orbit of asteroid 29722 Chrisgraham (1999 AQ23) on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025.

I performed two poems at Lowell Observatory's annual I ❤ Pluto Festival last night at the Orpheum Theatre.  I wrote two new pieces "The New Horizon," about Leonard Nimoy and his role as Spock, and "The Most Human,"  about the New Horizon mission to Pluto.

The featured guests were Adam Nimoy, a television director and son of the late actor Leonard Nimoy; Alan Stern, Ph.D., Principal Investigator of the New Horizons Mission to Pluto; comet-hunter David Levy, who co-discovered Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (D/1993 F2) with Flagstaff scientists Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 famously broke apart in July 1992 and its pieces slammed into Jupiter in July 1994, the first collision of two of extraterrestrial Solar System objects that was direct observable.

Adam Nimoy speaking about his father, Leonard Nimoy and his new book, "The Most Human: Reconciling with My Father, Leonard Nimoy."

Adam Nimoy, David Levy, Alan Stern, Ph.D., and David Eicher, from left, on stage at the Orpheum Theater in Flagstaff.

Alan Stern, Ph.D., answering an audience question about the New Horizons mission to Pluto.

Nimoy, Stern and Levy participated in a discussion on how scientific exploration inspires humanity moderated by David Eicher, editor-in-chief of Astronomy magazine.

Adam Nimoy and Christopher Fox Graham after I ❤ Pluto Festival giving the Vulcan Salute

Alan Stern and Christopher Fox Graham after I ❤ Pluto Festival giving the Pluto Salute

After the event, a number of us -- Nimoy, Levy, Eicher, my good friend Lowell Observatory Historian and Public Information Officer Kevin Schindler, Chief Marketing Officer Cody Half-Moon and Arizona State Rep. Justin Wilmeth [District 2], who wrote the bill the named Pluto as Arizona's Official State Planet in 2024 -- headed over Lowell Observatory's Giovale Open Deck Observatory to look through telescopes at Mars, Jupiter, the Moon and the Orion Nebula. The staff stayed after hours to keep the GODO in place so we could use the telescopes.

Giovale Open Deck Observatory

Afterward, as Levy, Eicher, Wilmeth and I were walking back to the parking lot, Kevin said he had a gift for me ...

... an asteroid!

29722 Chrisgraham (1999 AQ23)

According to the description:

"29722 Chrisgraham" was discovered Jan. 14, 1999, by LONEOS at Anderson Mesa. Christopher Fox Graham (b. 1979) is an American journalist and longtime managing editor of Sedona Red Rock News. He is a nationally-recognized slam poet who has written and performed multiple poems about Pluto and other space themes."

It's 4 to 5 kilometers in diameter, orbiting the sun in just over 1,552 days, or 4.249 years.

Current location of asteroid 29722 Chrisgraham (1999 AQ23)

It has an inclination of 14.70 degrees from the ecliptic:

Asteroid 29722 Chrisgraham (1999 AQ23) is off the ecliptic by 14.70 degrees

And an orbital eccentricity of 0.123 (0 being a perfect circle, 1 being a parabola; e.g., Earth has an eccentricity of 0.016709 while Halley's comet has an eccentricity of 0.96658):

Huge thanks to Larry Wasserman, Ph.D., the longtime Lowell Observatory astronomer who maintains the Asteroid Orbital Elements Database and sends nominations for asteroid names to the International Astronomical Union.

Special thanks to Kevin Schindler (obviously) and Justin Wilmeth, David Levy and David Eicher for being part of our impromptu celebration.

Track asteriod 29722 Chrisgraham (1999 AQ23) here: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html 

Osculating Orbital Elements

Epoch 2460800.5 (2025-May-05.0) TDB
Reference: JPL 57 (heliocentric IAU76/J2000 ecliptic)

Element	Value	Uncertainty (1-sigma)	Units
e	0.123863053596922	6.4653E-10
a	2.623394965358557	6.7557E-10	au
q	2.298453254158455	1.64E-9	au
i	14.70847304577334	3.2354E-8	deg
node	135.1805250376861	1.8459E-7	deg
peri	98.0162157504617	3.36E-7	deg
M	354.1630116692738	4.4962E-7	deg
tp	2460825.664034520440 2025-May-30.16403452	1.9454E-6	TDB
period	1552.007972959458 4.249166250402348	5.995E-7 1.6413e-9	d y
n	0.2319575712704176	8.96E-11	deg/d
Q	2.948336676558659	7.5925E-10	au

Huge thanks to Kevin and his team at Lowell Observatory who run an amazing event: Chief Marketing Officer Cody Half-Moon, Marketing Operations Coordinator Heather Craig, Communication Designer Alex Elbert, Brand Manager Sarah Gilbert and Content Writer Madison Mooney, as well as Lowell Observatory Operations Manager Amanda Bosh, Ph.D., who manages the observatory and the staff. She and Kevin are great at making the I ❤ Pluto Festival more than just an astronomy event by incorporating the community, bringing in local officials, glass-blower George Averbeck to create ornaments for the speakers, Mother Road Brewing Company founder Michael Marquess to brew a special beer every year and a poet to perform poems about Pluto and space.

Backstage in the green room at the Orpheum Theater with David Eicher, David Levy, Adam Nimoy, Kevin Schindler (standing) and Alan Stern, Ph.D., from left. Arizona State Rep. Justin Wilmeth [District 2] is reflected in the mirror.