Poetry open mic returns to Sedona

Spoken word and performance poetry returns to Sedona with the Sedona Poetry Open Mic, from 8 to 10 p.m., on the first and third Tuesdays of the month. The event kicks off on Tuesday, April 3.
The open mic takes place on the at the Old Marketplace stage, 1370 W. Hwy. 89A, West Sedona, between The Martini Bar and Ravenheart Coffee, both of which will supply coffee and alcoholic for the audience.
The open mic is open to all types of spoken word artists, from page poets, slam poets, spoken word artists, performance artists, storytellers and comedians.
The open mic is co-hosted by Greg Nix and Christopher Fox Graham, both of Sedona.
Originally from Atlanta and a veteran of the Flagstaff poetry scene, Nix is a performance poet and writer whose use of satire, sarcasm, irony and humor interplay with his political sensibilities and social commentary with a Southern sense of sincerity, according to a press release.
Graham is a slam poet whose work blends romantic longing, confessional honesty and personal introspection with a touch of Arizona humor, according to the release.
A veteran of the metro Phoenix and Flagstaff slam scenes, Graham has represented Northern Arizona as a member of four National Poetry Slam teams, won the 2004 NORAZ Grand Slam and the 2005 Arizona All-Star Slam.
The Martini Bar, Ravenheart Coffee New Frontiers Natural Marketplace will offer gift certificates for the best poets, as chosen by the audience.
The event is sponsored by the GumptionFest Artistic Support Foundation, a coalition of artists dedicated to supporting the arts in the Verde Valley.
For more information, call The Martini Bar at 282-9288, Graham at 1-520-921-0075 or visit www.gumptionfest.com

On April 20, 1999, during the Kosovo war, Kosovar Albanian poet Flora Brovina was abducted by eight masked Serb paramilitaries. On 9 Dec. 9, 1999, in a show trial, she was accused of 'terrorist activities' under Article 136 of the Yugoslav Penal Code. She spent a year and a half in Serb prisons before being released as a result of international pressure.

Irina Ratushinskaya, ???´?? ??????´?????, was arrested in 1979 and charged with anti-Soviet agitation for "the dissemination of slanderous documentation in poetic form." She was released on the eve of the summit in Reykjavík, Iceland, between President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in October 1986.

John O'Leary (1830 - 1907) was an Irish poet and Fenian (patriot in the Irish republican movement). In 1865, O'Leary was arrested in England, and tried on charges of conspiracy. He was sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude, of which nine years were spent in English prisons prior to his exile to Paris in 1874.

In 1990, the Burmese military junta charged Myo Myint Nyein, editor of Pay Phu Hlwar magazine and poet, with "organizing youths and students to create instability" through articles in the publication. While in prison, Myo Myint Nyein and other incarcerated colleagues clandestinely formed the "Press Freedom Movement". Because of his involvement in the "Press Freedom Movement", Myo Myint Nyein was sentenced to an additional seven years of hard labor.

Armando Valladares was a political prisoner and prisoner of conscience in Cuba. Valladares was jailed in 1960, at age 23, when the new regime under Fidel Castro began to crack down on dissidents. Valladares's refusal to participate in any political rehabilitation programs elicited a response from the government - 46 days without food. His weakened muscles relegated him to a wheelchair for 5 years. Valladares spent 22 years in prison before being released in 1982 and moving to the United States. President Ronald Reagan appointed Valladares to serve as the US ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. As head of the US delegation, he successfully brought Cuba before the commission for its human rights violations. Reagan would later confer on him the nation's highest civil honor, the Presidential Citizens Medal. Statistics from the BBC.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5081360.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2293991.stm

Poetry open mic returns to Sedona

Spoken word and performance poetry returns to Sedona with the Sedona Poetry Open Mic, from 8 to 10 p.m., on the first and third Tuesdays of the month. The event kicks off on Tuesday, April 3.
The open mic takes place on the at the Old Marketplace stage, 1370 W. Hwy. 89A, West Sedona, between The Martini Bar and Ravenheart Coffee, both of which will supply coffee and alcoholic for the audience.
The open mic is open to all types of spoken word artists, from page poets, slam poets, spoken word artists, performance artists, storytellers and comedians.
The open mic is co-hosted by Greg Nix and Christopher Fox Graham, both of Sedona.
Originally from Atlanta and a veteran of the Flagstaff poetry scene, Nix is a performance poet and writer whose use of satire, sarcasm, irony and humor interplay with his political sensibilities and social commentary with a Southern sense of sincerity, according to a press release.
Graham is a slam poet whose work blends romantic longing, confessional honesty and personal introspection with a touch of Arizona humor, according to the release.
A veteran of the metro Phoenix and Flagstaff slam scenes, Graham has represented Northern Arizona as a member of four National Poetry Slam teams, won the 2004 NORAZ Grand Slam and the 2005 Arizona All-Star Slam.
The Martini Bar, Ravenheart Coffee New Frontiers Natural Marketplace will offer gift certificates for the best poets, as chosen by the audience.
The event is sponsored by the GumptionFest Artistic Support Foundation, a coalition of artists dedicated to supporting the arts in the Verde Valley.
For more information, call The Martini Bar at 282-9288, Graham at 1-520-921-0075 or visit www.gumptionfest.com

On April 20, 1999, during the Kosovo war, Kosovar Albanian poet Flora Brovina was abducted by eight masked Serb paramilitaries. On 9 Dec. 9, 1999, in a show trial, she was accused of 'terrorist activities' under Article 136 of the Yugoslav Penal Code. She spent a year and a half in Serb prisons before being released as a result of international pressure.

Irina Ratushinskaya (Ири́на Ратуши́нская), born 1954, was arrested in 1979 and charged with anti-Soviet agitation for "the dissemination of slanderous documentation in poetic form." She was released on the eve of the summit in Reykjavík, Iceland, between President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in October 1986.

John O'Leary (1830 - 1907) was an Irish poet and Fenian (patriot in the Irish republican movement). In 1865, O'Leary was arrested in England, and tried on charges of conspiracy. He was sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude, of which nine years were spent in English prisons prior to his exile to Paris in 1874.

In 1990, the Burmese military junta charged Myo Myint Nyein, editor of Pay Phu Hlwar magazine and poet, with "organizing youths and students to create instability" through articles in the publication. While in prison, Myo Myint Nyein and other incarcerated colleagues clandestinely formed the "Press Freedom Movement". Because of his involvement in the "Press Freedom Movement", Myo Myint Nyein was sentenced to an additional seven years of hard labor.

Armando Valladares was a political prisoner and prisoner of conscience in Cuba. Valladares was jailed in 1960, at age 23, when the new regime under Fidel Castro began to crack down on dissidents. Valladares's refusal to participate in any political rehabilitation programs elicited a response from the government - 46 days without food. His weakened muscles relegated him to a wheelchair for 5 years. Valladares spent 22 years in prison before being released in 1982 and moving to the United States. President Ronald Reagan appointed Valladares to serve as the US ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. As head of the US delegation, he successfully brought Cuba before the commission for its human rights violations. Reagan would later confer on him the nation's highest civil honor, the Presidential Citizens Medal. Statistics about bullets acquired from the BBC.
Statistics on violence acquired from the BBC.

Random Acts of Coffee in Sedona is closing

Poets and poetry lovers,

Random Acts of Coffee in Sedona is closing.

Last night, the owner, Jessica Johnson, told me that she could no longer afford to keep their doors open. The last night of the venue will be Sunday, July 3.

Any poet who will be in Sedona on July 3 should help say goodbye to this venue. If you want to read, even a single poem, call the coffeehouse between 3 p.m. and midnight at 928-282-7072. They have done more for keeping art, not just poetry, alive in Arizona more than any other venue in the state, without question. If you cannot attend, call or email Jessica Johnson at bioioiotch@hotmail.com or Josh Robbins at hydrophonic@gmail.com and tell them how amazing their venue is.

Poets and poetry lovers, the staff, Jessica Johnson, Allie Johnson, Josh Robbins, P.J. Robbins, Corky Ke'ola'okalani, Katie Smith, and the other various volunteers have never been paid in the nearly 2 years that the venue has been open. They worked on tips alone.

To say that this venue was important is an understatement. In a city that prides itself of being a community of artists, this is a tragedy.

Random Acts of Coffee is a venue unlike any other I have encountered. As a performance poet, I have traveled across the country and the venues that keep a community alive are those that focus not on profit margins, but on people. A true artist venue is not one that worries about profit or marketing or product, but one that builds a community.

We became poets because we know that the human condition is one of being desperately alone - we write to rage in futility against that loneliness. We know that when we die, we are celebrated only by how we touched the people we loved. That love comes from the communities we build.

Poets and poetry lovers, this venue did that. It fostered a community wherein 14-year-old kids could escape the world; where 70-year-olds could remember what it means to be young. Where those in between could learn from their elders and teach their youngers. At this venue, children and youth felt equal to the elderly. Boys learned from men how to live. Girls learned from women how to be strong. It was a venue wherein every artist, customer and wayfarer was an equal in a democracy of the love of art. Here, if you were an artist or an art lover, you were welcome with open arms, an amazing staff and great coffee.

Poets and poetry lovers, if we call ourselves representatives of art, of the people, this is the venue we would build. We want a place where people are judged not on their pocketbooks, status, backgrounds, ethnicities, orientations, genders, but on what they create to serve their community and what they value: people and relationships.

Random Acts of Coffee was the first venue I visited in Sedona and where I spent much of my spare time. It hosted musicians from Grammy Award-winner Stanley Jordan to professional musicians like Oslo, to bands of 16-year-old kids who just wanted to play music. I woke up some mornings to coffee there, and often stayed late to help close the venue. I washed dishes some nights when the needed a hand, took out trash, sometimes ran they register, and even made a few drinks. I never asked for payment or a cut of the tips because I was doing a service for the venue that served my community. The staff named a drink for me, a Topher, and I was flattered when I saw it printed on their menus. That's how I much I meant to this venue, but they meant so much more to me.

I have kept a database of the Random Acts of Poetry Monday night open mic. Poets who have featured and read include Mike McGee, San Jose, Calif.; Sonya Renee, Washington D.C.; Corrina Bain and Mallory Hanora Kazmerek, Providence, R.I.; Oveous Maximus, N.Y.C.; Adam Rubenstein, Adam Stone, and Jack McCarthy, Boston; David Tabor, Mesa, Ariz.; Derrick Brown, Long Beach, Calif.; and from NORAZ: Robin Anderson, Christopher Lane, Dan Seaman, Logan Phillips, Josh Robbins, Jessica Johnson, Allie Johnson, Corky Ke'ola'okalani, Adelle Brewer, Adrienne Harris, Brian Mosher, Becca Allen, Jesse Dyllan Grace, Sharkie Marado, Greg Nix, Al Moyer, David Ward, Atrina Brill, Meghan Jones, John Raymond Kofonow, Aaron Johnson, Portlin Cochise, Christopher Carbon, Rochelle Brener, Gary Every, Jenné, Rebekah Crisp, Jarrod Masseud Karimi, Erin Anne McMahon, Eric Larson, Lindsay C. Chamberlain, Annalisa Gravel, Cass J. Hodges, Elliot Hodges, Erik John Karf, Danielle Miller, David Rogers Luben, Gary Ehlemberger, Jade Reyes, Jason Thompson, Julia Snyder, Nico, Katie Smith, Kim Delacy-Bennett, Kimmy Wilgus, Kira Bonner, Lilly Reid, Lina Hsueh, Lloyd Alquist, Rhett Pepe, Robert F. Remington, Ron Sanders, Ryan "Guts" Guide, Delbert Jack Hildebrandt IV, Vito Licavoli, Waylon Brown, Tony Carito, "The Shane" Coronado, Jesse Johns, John Q. Richards, Jordan Sherrill, Carl Weiss, Lucille Gray, R. Scott, Steve Wong, Amanda Marden, Raychel Huber, Carol St. John, Tony Burfield, Christine Wagner, J.R. Robusto, Chris Dahl, Ann Buoy, Kyle Castillo and Cooper Reid.

In all, 569 different poets have read at the Random Acts of Poetry Monday night open mic since I started it in April 2003. To list them all would be ridiculous. Some were seasoned slam poets, others are professional spoken artists, but most are high school, junior high, and even elementary school students from schools in the Verde Valley. These are people who now have at least a respect for our art form, if not a love of it, because they were given a venue wherein they had complete freedom of speech.

When I started writing a column on Underground Art in Sedona for Sedona Red Rock News, I was tempted to call it "Random Acts Weekly," not because I wanted the venue to get free ads, but because if my features did underground art, it was at Random Acts.

This venue not only gave artists a home, it gave the youth a safe place to be. Without it, Sedona's youth have no sanctuary.

To be frank, with Random Acts, youth were safe. Rather than get drunk, doing drugs, having unprotected sex, committing vandalism or other juvenile crimes, youth could experience art, music and poetry, share stories and hang out with a venue and staff that offered them security.

Poets and poetry lovers, as the venue closes, I, as an official member of the City of Sedona Child and Youth Commission, am afraid for the youth of my community. They have lost the one venue in this city that protected their interests without judging their character. Where will my youth, my community, go? There is no other venue in this city that caters to youth, to artists without question, and to area residents equally.

One of the saddest things I have been told in the last year was when Jessica Johnson said she dreaded telling me most that they were closing, because of how much I have cared for this place. I have never felt so honored.

Poets and poetry lovers, if you are true to your commitment to community, go to Random Acts from now until July 3, buy coffee, tell the staff that they will be missed, and tip till it hurts. Then tip more. Thank them for building a community. Go to the farewell bash on July 3 and read your poetry if they ask you to. If you know someone with a spare $100,000 or a spare $20,000 tell him or her to invest.

If nothing else, let all of Arizona hear an echo of the venue going out with a bang.

"poets.

move another.

no longer should we be allowed to speak to another poet unless we have answered the questions,

'what, where, who have you helped today?'” – Christopher Lane.

Poets, at the end of the day, we just spit empty words. We just hope they help someone, anyone.

Random Acts of Coffee did help … everyone who was ever moved by the art within its walls.

Sincerely,

Christopher Fox Graham

Spoken Word Poet

NORAZ Poets™ Advisory Board Treasurer

City of Sedona Child and Youth Commissioner

P.O. Box 1130

Sedona, AZ 86339

520-921-0075

NORAZ Poets win the Arizona state championship at the 5th annual Arcosanti Slab City Slam

The Arizona State Championship title has returned to NORthern AriZona. The NORAZ Poets won the Arcosanti Slab City Slam on April 28, by 16.5 points.

"That's two touchdowns and a field goal," Christopher Lane, NORAZ Poets executive director and Team NORAZ member, said.

The fifth annual Arcosanti Slab City Slam featured 10 teams from all across the state. The NORAZ Poets included three teams of four poets each. Team NORAZ, Team Prescott, Team FlagSlam, faced off against Team Tucson, Team Arcosanti, The Loose Nuts, Hangover Express, a third Phoenix team, The X-Hosts, a team of slam hosts from the East Valley of Phoenix and Team NORAZ's cross-state arch-rivals Team Mesa Nationals, who has won the last four This year's Mesa team includes Brent Heffron a member of the 2004 Team NORAZ.

The championship team consisted of 4 of the 5 members of Team NORAZ:
Christopher Lane, of Sedona
Meghan Jones, of Flagstaff
Christopher Fox Graham, of Sedona, and
Logan Philips, of Flagstaff.

Team Prescott:
Eric Larson, of Prescott, and a member of 2004 Team NORAZ
Patrick David DuHaime, of Prescott
David Rogers "Doc" Luben, of Prescott, and
Greg Nix, of Flagstaff

Team FlagSlam:
Aaron Johnson, of Flastaff, the fifth member of Team NORAZ
Kimmy Wilgus of Flagstaff
Rhett Pepe, of Flagstaff
John R. Kofonow, Slam Master of Flagstaff

The tournament consisted of all 10 teams competing in two preliminary rounds.

Christopher Lane, kicking off the slam with "if this poem," starting in the middle of the crowd and moving to the microphone as he performed. At the end of the first round, Team Mesa was ahead by a slim margin. But Meghan Jones' poem, "Where's Your Microphone?," a plea to the women poets in the crowd to become slam poets started off the second round with Team NORAZ in the lead, and the margin of victory only increased. Christopher Fox Graham's "We Call Him Papa" and Logan Philips' "The Boy's Pockets" cemented their lead.

As round two rolled around, Team Mesa came in fierce in the first slot. Team FlagSlam was in the third slot, followed by Team Prescott, and Team NORAZ in the sixth slot. Logan Philips started off with "Worth of Words," followed by Meghan Jones' "Patches", Christopher Fox Graham's "Spinal Language" and closing out the last round of the bout with Christopher Lane's "poetry is still."

The final bout would be the top 4 teams: Team NORAZ, Team Prescott,, Team Tucson and Team Mesa Nationals.

The night's poetry feature was Luke Warm Water, an activist, poet, epidemiologist an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Tribe, born and raised in Rapid City, S.D. Author of John Wayne Shot Me, Luke Warm Water, has performed across the United States, England and Germany, in 120 venues within the last 4 years. He was preceded by 2005 NORAZ Poets semi-finalist Rowie Shebala, of the Navajo Nation.

Team NORAZ now had a comfortable lead of 12 points. The finals bout was a "feature" round for the team. Christopher Lane performed "for Jessica…". Christopher Fox Graham brought out perhaps the most anticipated poem of the night, "The Peach is a Damn Sexy Fruit." Meghan Jones, made the night a hot one with the sensual, sexy "Honey." The line "caramelize me," melted the audience in their seats. To top out the night, Logan Philips performed "La Viejita de Sonora."

In the end:
Team NORAZ 339.4
Team Mesa Nationals 322.9
Team Prescott 320.9
Team Tucson 315.6

The night ended with a bronze pour at the Arcosanti Bronze Foundry where the Arconauts created the 40-pound bronze trophy, followed by a fire performance by Flam Chen, and a huge after-party that rolled until dawn.

Note that NORAZ Poets, not just Team NORAZ won the tournament. Of the 40 poets who competed, 13 of them were NORAZ Poets. We are a community of poets, not just a team, and not individuals. The victory and the trophy represents our strength as a community, unified in our diversity.