The Sedona Poetry Slam has reached the final slam of the season before the summer break Saturday, May 13. Performance poets will bring high-energy, competitive spoken word to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m.
Seth Walker
Between rounds, one of the best known performance poets in the country will feature on the stage.
Seth Walker is a poet, playwright, songwriter, and musician born in Baton Rouge, La., raised in Texas and now living in Phoenix. His upbringing in the southern United States is reflected in his work, which often explores themes of love, loss and the human experience. For five years, he toured nonstop across the United States and Canada, performing at poetry venues almost every night.
Walker's poetry is known for its raw emotion and its ability to capture the beauty and complexity of everyday life. His work often incorporates elements of nature, and he has been praised for his ability to use the natural world as a metaphor for human emotion and experience.
Overall, Walker's poetry is a testament to the power of language and its ability to evoke deep emotions and connect people to one another. His work is a reminder that even in the midst of pain and hardship, there is still beauty and meaning to be found in the world.
The Slam
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. 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.
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 and Flagstaff, competing against adult poets from Sedona and Cottonwood, college poets from Northern Arizona University and youth poets from Sedona Red Rock High School.
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.
BlackBerry Peach
Also expected to compete is B-Jam, aka Ben Gardea, who was chosen last month by Sedona's judges to represent all of Arizona against more than 40 other top poets at the BlackBerryPeach National Slam Poetry Competition held June 21 to June 26, in Des Moines, Iowa, sponsored by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies and the Iowa Poetry Association. He is the Arizona State Poetry Society's official state representative.
Mary D. Fisher Theatre is located at 2030 W. SR 89A, Suite A-3, in West Sedona. Tickets are $12. For tickets, call 282-1177 or visit SedonaFilmFestival.org.
The Sedona Poetry Slam will return for its 15th season the fall.
The prize money is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporters Jeanne and Jim Freeland.
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.
For more information, visit sedonafilmfestival.com or foxthepoet.blogspot.com.
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 Simmon's 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.
