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 1.6 million views 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 I Heart Pluto Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I Heart Pluto Festival. Show all posts

Sunday, February 16, 2025

“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






"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.
 





Sunday, February 2, 2025

I'm performing at the I Heart Pluto Festival, whose keynote speakers are Adam Nimoy, Dr. Alan Stern and David Levy

On Feb. 15, 2025, Lowell Observatory and the Orpheum Theater will present A Night of Discovery, commemorating the 95th anniversary of Clyde Tombaugh’s discovery of Pluto and the 10th anniversary of the New Horizons mission to explore this icy world. This is the keynote event of the 6th annual I Heart Pluto Festival, with the theme “To Boldly go Beyond New Horizons.”

Adam Nimoy, left, sporting “Spock ears” with his father, Leonard Nimoy. Photo by Adam Nimoy

The evening will feature an exclusive conversation with distinguished guests Adam Nimoy, a television director and son of the late actor Leonard Nimoy.

Adam Nimoy

Dr. Alan Stern (Principal Investigator of the New Horizons Mission to Pluto), 

Sol Alan Stern is an American engineer, planetary scientist and space tourist. He is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express

and comet-hunting legend David Levy. David Eicher, Editor-in-Chief of Astronomy magazine, will moderate this discussion on how scientific exploration inspires humanity.

David Howard Levy, a Canadian amateur astronomer, science writer and discoverer of comets and minor planets, who co-discovered Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 in 1993.

Nimoy’s father starred in the iconic Star Trek television show, Stern led the New Horizons mission that revolutionized our understanding of Pluto, and Levy co-discovered — with legendary Flagstaff scientists Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker — Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which collided with Jupiter in 1994. Each of these events captured the imagination of people around the world and spurred widespread curiosity about space and its exploration.

Following this discussion, Adam Nimoy will sign copies of his new book, "The Most Human: Reconciling with My Father, Leonard Nimoy" and the entire panel will also sign event posters. Books and posters will be available for purchase at the Orpheum throughout the evening.

Lowell Observatory Executive Director Dr. Amanda Bosh says, “We are pleased to join the Flagstaff community in celebrating our Pluto heritage and this esteemed group of presenters will inspire our imaginations to boldly go beyond our little corner of the solar system.”

Additional presentations and events during A Night of Discovery include:

Arizona State Rep. Justin Wilmeth will discuss the bill he introduced that declared Pluto as Arizona’s official state planet in 2024.

  • Christopher Fox Graham, longtime editor of the Sedona Red Rock News and a noted slam poet, will read two poems he wrote honoring Pluto and Leonard Nimoy
  • Lowell Observatory Historian Kevin Schindler will recount the story of Clyde Tombaugh’s discovery of Pluto on February 18, 1930, and how he ended up at the Orpheum on that momentous evening
  • Flagstaff Mayor Becky Daggett and Coconino County Supervisor Patrice Horstman will read proclamations celebrating this year’s I Heart Pluto Festival
  • FlagTagAZ will set up their popular axe-throwing cage just outside the Orpheum
  • Lowell Observatory’s Starry Skies Shop will offer Pluto-themed merchandise for sale
  • A Pluto-themed beer, created especially for this year’s I Heart Pluto Festival by Mother Road Brewing Company, will be available. Additional beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, as well as food will also be available for purchase throughout the evening

Doors open to the public at 6pm, with programs commencing at 7pm.

General admission tickets, as well as a VIP option that provides access to a private reception at 5pm with the presenters prior to the main program, are available at

wl.seetickets.us/event/i-heart-pluto-a-night-of-discovery/629870?afflky=OrpheumTheater

Background of the I Heart Pluto Festival

Flagstaff is often referred to as the “Home of Pluto” due to its significant contributions to research of this icy world. These efforts include Percival Lowell’s early searches for a ninth planet, “Planet X”; Clyde Tombaugh’s discovery of Pluto on February 18, 1930; Jim Christy’s detection of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, in 1978; the first observation of Pluto’s atmosphere in 1988; early maps of Pluto’s surface; the New Horizons flyby of the Pluto system in 2015, and more. 

To celebrate this rich heritage, Lowell Observatory inaugurated the I Heart Pluto Festival in 2020. This community event is held annually on or near February 18. 

About Lowell Observatory

Founded in 1894, Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, is a prestigious nonprofit research institution renowned for its historic and groundbreaking discoveries, including the first evidence of the expanding universe and the discovery of Pluto. Today, Lowell's astronomers utilize global ground-based and space telescopes, along with NASA spacecraft, for diverse astronomical and planetary science research. The observatory hosts more than 100,000 visitors annually for educational tours, presentations, and telescope viewing through a suite of world-class public telescopes.

Saturday, February 11, 2023

I'm performing at the I ❤ Pluto Festival on Feb. 18, 93 years after Pluto was discovered from Flagstaff's Lowell Observator


I'm honored that Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff has asked me to perform the poems "To the Planet Formerly Known as Pluto" and "Clyde Tombaugh" at the 2023 I ❤ Pluto Festival at the Orpheum Theater on Feb. 18.

I'll be sharing the stage with Lowell Observatory Historian Kevin Schindler, who will relive Clyde Tombaugh’s day of discovering Pluto, 93 years ago.


The keynote is Astronaut Nicole Stott, who flew with the space shuttle Discovery on missions STS-128 and STS-133, space shuttle Atlantis on STS-129 and twice to the Internation Space Station on Expedition 20 and Expedition 21. Stott will talk about her career and wrote a book "Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet – And Our Mission to Protect It."

She creatively combines the awe and wonder of her spaceflight experience with her artwork to inspire everyone’s appreciation of our role as crewmates here on Spaceship Earth.

She is a veteran NASA Astronaut with two spaceflights and 104 days as a crewmember on both the International Space Station (ISS) and the Space Shuttle. Personal highlights of her time in space include performing a spacewalk (10th woman to do so), flying the robotic arm to capture the first free-flying HTV, painting a watercolor (now on display at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum), working with her international crew on science that is all about improving life on Earth, and of course the life changing view of our home planet. She is also a NASA Aquanaut. In preparation for spaceflight she was a crew member on an 18-day saturation dive mission at the Aquarius undersea laboratory.

Nicole believes that the international model of peaceful and successful cooperation we have experienced in the extreme environments of space and sea holds the key to the same kind of peaceful and successful cooperation for all of humanity here on Earth.

On her post-NASA mission, Nicole is a co-founder of the Space for Art Foundation — uniting a planetary community of children through the awe and wonder of space exploration and the healing power of art.

"Dear Pluto"
By Christopher Fox Graham
April 20, 2012

To the planet formerly known as Pluto,

Though we will never meet
I think I know you

I am a speck of organic matter
standing on the surface of your sister
my people and I
are converted from ice and dust
electrified into existence
by the mere circumstances
of your sister Earth and nephew Moon
dancing with tide pools
when they were still in their infancy

mere molecules slammed together
and held onto each other in strings
which took billions of years
to mistake themselves in their reproduction
to form this all-too-young boy
sending you this letter

forgive my impetuousness, dear Pluto
but compared to you,
I only have a second
before this organic matter caves in on itself
becomes dust and water to form something new

all I have is my voice
and I beg you to listen
because although we will never meet
I think I know you

I’m not sure if you will receive this letter
In the time it takes to reach you,
I could bounce between here and the sun 16 times
measured on your timescale
my country is not even a year old yet

You’re farther away from the sun
than any of your siblings
and while the rest of those planets circulate in lockstep
in the same elliptical orbit

yours is full of highs and lows
as you rise above the plane
and drop beneath it
because you’re either bipolar
of just refuse to conform

be glad you’ve been able to do it so long
here, those who are different
either by choice or accident
wind up getting bullied, brutalized or crucified

and while I could explain what those words mean
let’s hope that by the time one of us stands on your surface
we’ve forgotten what they mean, too

At Lowell Observatory in the hills overlooking Flagstaff
astronomer Clyde Tombaugh picked you out from the black
he watched you wander at the edge of the solar system
and noted how you keep your distance
from everyone else like you

I know what it feels like to be alone, too
there are times when people here
believe the sun is so far away they don’t feel warm anymore
and they stare out into the black
and wonder what’s like to just let go

I’m glad you’ve stayed with us, dear Pluto
you show us that even when the universe is terrifying cold
there’s some light to hold on to
some reason to keep moving

and even out there you and your moon Charon
prove you can find love anywhere

since we began to worship stars
we have followed your siblings
the rocky worlds, the gas giants
to us, if they were bigger than an asteroid or moon
and weren’t furnaces like the sun,
they were a planet
deserving the name of a god
an astrological house
and a certain amount of inexplicable reverence

you were nine children of a yellow sun
on the rural edge of the galaxy

but now because your size doesn’t fit new rules
the International Astronomical Union on my world
has decided you are no longer a planet

you don’t meet the qualifications anymore

you no longer govern an astrological house

they took you away from you were to us

because some ink on paper said you didn’t matter anymore

they put you a box labeled “dwarf planets” or “Plutoids”
only to be ostracized from your brothers and sisters
by faceless strangers at the stroke of pen

here, we label people too,
segregate them into boxes
based on the color of their skins
or which one of those gods they called out to while dying
or whether they love someone with the same or different parts
or in what way they their throats make noises to communicate
or even by where they were born
as if point of origin means anything
on a planet spinning 1,600 kilometers per second,
where specks like me have wandered to every part of it

tell me, dear Pluto
can you see the borders of our nations from out there?
it seems that’s all we can see down here sometimes
can you tell us apart?
if we one day reach you
dig our fingers into your dirt
would you care about what language we used
to tell each other 
how beautiful the moment was?

Dear Pluto,
I know what it feels like to be small
I’m still a little boy, too
playing grown-up games
wondering what happens
when there’s nothing left to orbit anymore

Though we will never meet
you don’t have to answer this letter if it ever reaches you
but I think you know me,
I am a tiny voice on your sister Earth
and you are Pluto, the ninth planet of the sun

"Clyde Tombaugh"
A companion poem to "Dear Pluto"
January 27, 2016

The Kansas boy stares into the sky
counting stars with his fingers
pretending he can touch each one
playing piano keys with constellations

the spheres make music most us will never hear
but he orchestrates symphonies
oboes in Orion
clarinets in Cancer
violins in Virgo
percussion rumbling off supernova timpanies
snare drums on the skin of black holes
while spinning quasars keep perfect rhythm

the boy, now a teen measures stars with his telescopes
built from leftover parts
shaping steel and mirrors
to bend the light down into his hands
he wants to hold the weight of stardust 
in his palm

the boy, now a man,
works on Mars Hill
the evening shift at Lowell Observatory
scouring the images for differences
one single speck out of place
but these were skies he could paint from memory

on a night like tonight
a cold February
the man became a boy again
when he found a spot 
hide-and-seeking with him
telling him the stars and planets were looking back at us
an undiscovered instrument 
making music he was the first to hear

a ninth symphony he held for a moment
heard alone, echoing in solitary discovery
before he shared it with the world

76 years later,
nine years after his death
mankind's ship in a bottle
broke the bonds of earth to reach out
and find New Horizons
in the cold dark of space



in a case no bigger than heart of a boy
now 2.97 billion miles from Kansas
from Mars Hill
from our entire history
are the ashes of the man who first heard the music

after six years alone in the dark
he traveled farther than anyone in history
to visit a world unseen by human eyes

and last July, the man became a boy again
matching his imagination to the globe in front of him
visiting an undiscovered country held for a moment
a solitary discovery
before he shared it with the world

at that distance, signals and light take 4 and half hours to reach home
in those hours, 
Clyde Tombaugh,
you had a world captivated in the silence
waiting 4 billion years
for someone to visit

what did you talk about?

did she ask 
what the sun feels like 
when so much closer?

how it warms your skin in summer?

did she tell you her story?

what it’s like to be so far away, alone in night?

how her years pass in centuries?

did you tell her about us?

about Kansas
about Mars Hill
about what it feels like to hold stardust in your palm?

did you tell her there were 7 billion boys and girls back home
waiting to see her for the first time?

was she eager to meet you since she first saw you
playing hide and seek with your telescopes
or counting stars with your fingers

or did she just sing a song?

one half of an unfinished duet
a harmony you already knew
something slow and beautiful
a secret 
only two lovers 
can understand
Astronaut Nicole Stott, from right; Alden Tombaugh, son of Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh; Alden's wife Cherylee Tombaugh; poet Christopher Fox Graham; Athena Zelda Nebula Skye Sylvia Diana Fox Graham; and Kevin Schindler, historian of Lowell Observatory, who organized the Night of Discovery event at the Orpheum Theater in Flagstaff.
I was honored to perform poems about Pluto and Clyde Tombaugh. Alden was very complimentary and asked for copies (which I had pre-printed and shared with Kevin, Alden and Nicole).
Athena had a great time and ate loads of food. Lowell's senior astronomer also announced a 2,430-km diameter asteroid between Jupiter and Mars is now officially called (28724) Stott.