Shappy Seasholtz: "Does She Like Me?"

Host Mike Henry introduces emcee Patricia Smith who introduces NPS contestant, Shappy with his poem "Does She Like Me?"

"This Country: When You Tire of Travels, Come Home" audio recording

This Country: When You Tire of Travels, Come Home by FoxThePoet

This Country:

When You Tire of Travels, Come Home

when your feet grow tired of globetrotting
and all the monuments to forgotten kings
have blurred into obscurity


when your shoulders ache
from carrying your whole world tortoise-style
from one rest-stop lover to another


when you’ve heard all the foreign tongues
repeat the same stories for the last time
and you’ve grown tired of translating


when your shoes have fallen apart
unable to martyr their soles
for your hobo evangelism …

come home
this country still longs for your sunrise
its geography is easy to map:

to the East lie my arms
curling inward to hold back time
their digits stretch northward
ten fingertips on separate crusades to find you
they unite only to pen poems about
the futility of kidnapping you across the borders
back into the caverns of my chest
overwhelming vacant since you stole its last inhabitant
which you unraveled the way Hansel and Gretel taught
to fashion a string to trace your route back here
these cave walls still shudder with your laughter
turning ribs into organ pipes
I play in dreams to orchestrate your reconquest
fool my yearning that you are only a hitchhiker’s thumb
and an hour from my doorstep —
a lie, but at least I can sleep through the night
without filling the hollow in my bed with my wailing
instead, try to keep it warm for you

to the South
are mountains of memories
impossible to scale without oxygen and a Nepalese Sherpa
they stretch to the clouds and in winter, blot out the sun
I chip at them with a pick axe of ink
take the pieces home to an orange juicer
attempt to squeeze out story after story
told in Homeric fashion
the gods of Olympus jealously dwarfed in the shadows
find their epics insufficient
Odysseus, Gilgamesh and Arjuna
camp in the foothills unable to scale you
talk about the good old days
when there wasn’t so much poetry in which to live
on the cliff sides I hunt for the road trips
the afternoon siestas
the midnight embraces
the slow Sunday mornings
for new word wombs
new poems to trap, take home, raise to maturity
and release back into the wild
for the world to see how you changed this boy
I will climb them as long as a pulse thumps me into movement

to the North is an ocean of your words
tide pools of sentences
waves of your stories
tsunamis of our arguments
to wash over any fool who braves to sail them
on maps print the words, “Here Be Dragons”
and I’m never sure which will swamp my boat
or carry me home
white-tip arrogance soothed by Sargasso Sea gentle honesty
choppy squalls when I lost myself to ego
pleas for forgiveness offered on Yom Kippur
all the poems over the phone blowing lost sailors to safe ports
someday when I have outlived you
I foresee abandoning shoes,
gripping frail hands on armrests,
rising from wheelchair
striping down to unflattering Speedo
and walking into these waves to drown
up to my ears in the waters of your laughter
filling my lungs with drops of your whispers

in the center is a house of paper
naked 8½ by 11s begging to be bathed in black ink
the first 30 stories are made of rough drafts
in preparation to meet you
the upper stories will be built to celebrate you
and when I reach my 90s
the tower will collapse with the weight
spreading the pages across this county
Billy Collins keeps an apartment across the hall from Derrick Brown
they meet in the lounge with Shane Koyczan and Ed Mabrey
have coffee on Sundays with R.C. Weslowski and Mike McGee,
each reading a new ode to you
they found that week on the cabinet
under the sink or behind the door
banisters Bill Campana will jot haiku from
window frames slam poems Klute will read aloud after bagels
dueling in rhyme with Shappy Seasholtz
sonnets on fireplaces Dan Seaman and Mikel Weisser will read in tandem
on weekends, CR Avery, Scott Dunbar and Lights
will play the ballroom made of canvasses
echoing through the vents all week long
on the upper floors
poets yet unborn ready to join to the conversation
there is room here
for whomever you choose to fill the house with
forgive the flesh of this man
for being made of flawed skin unedited
he knew not what he did
you always liked me better on paper anyway


to the West is an open country
as far as the eye can see
lie no walls nor borders
no future beyond what we make of it,
without a horizon to fall over
sunsets are unimaginable,
the land yearns for your footfalls
and I will chase you across it
until these feet break beneath me
never ask if it was all for naught
until you have seen the country you built here
the boy you reshaped who lives out in the open
uncertain of where to go now
penning poems from dawn to dusk
dreaming of your open arms
reading them to anyone who’ll listen


when you tire of travels
when you need shelter to rest weary limbs
when you want to see a boy left better
than the one you first met
this country is wherever you choose to meet me
ready to welcome you home


Written Sept. 28, 2010, a year to the day after meeting Azami.

This Country

when your feet grow tired of globetrotting
and all the monuments to forgotten kings
have blurred into obscurity


when your shoulders ache
from carrying your whole world tortoise-style
from one rest-stop lover to another


when you’ve heard all the foreign tongues
repeat the same stories for the last time
and you’ve grown tired of translating


when your shoes have fallen apart
unable to martyr their soles
for your hobo evangelism …


come home
this country still longs for your sunrise
its geography is easy to map:


to the East lie my arms
curling inward to hold back time
their digits stretch northward
ten fingertips on separate crusades to find you
they unite only to pen poems about
the futility of kidnapping you across the borders
back into the caverns of my chest
overwhelming vacant since you stole its last inhabitant
which you unraveled the way Hansel and Gretel taught
to fashion a string to trace your route back here
these cave walls still shudder with your laughter
turning ribs into organ pipes
I play in dreams to orchestrate your reconquest
fool my yearning that you are only a hitchhiker’s thumb
and an hour from my doorstep —
a lie, but at least I can sleep through the night
without filling the hollow in my bed with my wailing
instead, try to keep it warm for you


to the South
are mountains of memories
impossible to scale without oxygen and a Nepalese Sherpa
they stretch to the clouds and in winter, blot out the sun
I chip at them with a pick axe of ink
take the pieces home to an orange juicer
attempt to squeeze out story after story
told in Homeric fashion
the gods of Olympus jealously dwarfed in the shadows
find their epics insufficient
Odysseus, Gilgamesh and Arjuna
camp in the foothills unable to scale you
talk about the good old days
when there wasn’t so much poetry in which to live
on the cliff sides I hunt for the road trips
the afternoon siestas
the midnight embraces
the slow Sunday mornings
for new word wombs
new poems to trap, take home, raise to maturity
and release back into the wild
for the world to see how you changed this boy
I will climb them as long as a pulse thumps me into movement


to the North is an ocean of your words
tide pools of sentences
waves of your stories
tsunamis of our arguments
to wash over any fool who braves to sail them
on maps print the words, “Here Be Dragons”
and I’m never sure which will swamp my boat
or carry me home
white-tip arrogance soothed by Sargasso Sea gentle honesty
choppy squalls when I lost myself to ego
pleas for forgiveness offered on Yom Kippur
all the poems over the phone blowing lost sailors to safe ports
someday when I have outlived you
I foresee abandoning shoes,
gripping frail hands on armrests,
rising from wheelchair
striping down to unflattering Speedo
and walking into these waves to drown
up to my ears in the waters of your laughter
filling my lungs with drops of your whispers


in the center is a house of paper
naked 8½ by 11s begging to be bathed in black ink
the first 30 stories are made of rough drafts
in preparation to meet you
the upper stories will be built to celebrate you
and when I reach my 90s
the tower will collapse with the weight
spreading the pages across this county
Billy Collins keeps an apartment across the hall from Derrick Brown
they meet in the lounge with Shane Koyczan and Ed Mabrey
have coffee on Sundays with R.C. Weslowski and Mike McGee,
each reading a new ode to you
they found that week on the cabinet
under the sink or behind the door
banisters Bill Campana will jot haiku from
window frames slam poems Klute will read aloud after bagels
dueling in rhyme with Shappy Seasholtz
sonnets on fireplaces Dan Seaman and Mikel Weisser will read in tandem
on weekends, CR Avery, Scott Dunbar and Lights
will play the ballroom made of canvasses
echoing through the vents all week long
on the upper floors
poets yet unborn ready to join to the conversation
there is room here
for whomever you choose to fill the house with
forgive the flesh of this man
for being made of flawed skin unedited
he knew not what he did
you always liked me better on paper anyway


to the West is an open country
as far as the eye can see
lie no walls nor borders
no future beyond what we make of it,
without a horizon to fall over
sunsets are unimaginable,
the land yearns for your footfalls
and I will chase you across it
until these feet break beneath me
never ask if it was all for naught
until you have seen the country you built here
the boy you reshaped who lives out in the open
uncertain of where to go now
penning poems from dawn to dusk
dreaming of your open arms
reading them to anyone who’ll listen


when you tire of travels
when you need shelter to rest weary limbs
when you want to see a boy left better
than the one you first met
this country is wherever you choose to meet me
ready to welcome you home


I met Azami on Sept. 28, 2009. How my life has changed over the last 12 months.

National Poetry Slam: Nerd Slam & Finals

Being unable to make it to the National Poetry Slam in West Palm Beach, Fla., this year, I ate up all the stories I could find. One of my favorite exhibition slams is the Nerd Slam, which blends "nerd poetry" with pop quizzes about gaming, sci-fi television, movies and books, comic books, geeklit, and other assorted nerdy topics.

Of course, a summary of finals is always a great thing to read, mainly because that's often the eyes I use to how I see NPS.

Being who I am and with my brain and background, I don't think I see certain events other people do. I participate in things, from festivals to lovemaking to fistfights to concerts seeing things the way a poet does or the way a reporter does. I often feel moderately disconnected from things while people who may even have a less vested interest in them, I believe, feel more connected. I'm always looking for how I'll tell the story later, either to myself or through my writing - never specifically to another person. I wonder that when it's all said and done whether I'll believe that I really lived a full life or spent all my time watching it to write about it.

National Poetry Slam: Nerd Slam & Finals

TOD CAVINESS
Published: Aug. 9, 2009
I don't hear the term "slam nerd" being thrown around too much, but it's a fact: slam poets are nerds. So despite the cursing, the drinking and yes, even a seduction poem, the yearly Nerd Slam event at the National Poetry Slam may be the nerdiest place on earth. Reserved for poetry dedicated to geek lore, this is the show that exposes the myth of the shy, soft-spoken nerd - starting with the hosts.

If they weren't already, by now everyone is jealous of Shappy Seasholtz and Robbie Q. Telfer. Between this and the Decathlon Slam, they run the two best parties at Nationals, but they take their work seriously. Well, seriously enough to delegate, anyway.

Along with fellow Orlando poet J. Bradley, California's Stephen Meads and Phoenix slammer The Klute, I'm one of a select panel of nerd trivia masters.

So many people sign up for the Nerd Slam each year that Shappy and Robbie have them face off in trivia contests for the right to read their poem - a practice that's arguably more entertaining than the poems themselves.

So it is that we nerds become bullies, thinning the herd with stumpers about Harry Potter and The Terminator films (or in my case, comics).

But my people are familiar with both irony and exclusion, and besides, the practice works. The poets are as solid as ever.

There are descriptions of lovemaking using Star Trek cliches, odes to supervillainy, and even a pantoum about robots.

Crowning a top nerd is tough - right up until a girl reads an entire poem in Elvish. Marriage is proposed, the coveted phaser is awarded, and tabs are paid.

Leaving us just enough time to eat and head off to the finals bout at the West Palm Convention Center, packed with thousands. Nerd Slam was likely the last light-hearted moment this year - it's San Francisco, Albuquerque, St. Paul and New York City's venerable Nuyorican team in finals this year, and the bout is likely to be deadly serious both onstage and off.

Luckily, former slam champion Mike McGee is hosting the event, having flown down from Massachusetts days before. An irrepressible wit, McGee even makes the regular rules spiel hilarious by bringing Jersey poet Connor Dooley onstage to serve as the Flavor Flav to his Chuck D.

And then, it's on. Sure enough, St. Paul's 6 is 9 has the judges by the heartstrings early with his character study about an Alzheimer's victim struggling to remember his wife:

"I don't know her name.
It slipped from me
like words tend to do
when she wears those Sunday dresses ..."

From then on, everyone brings out an impressive bag of tricks in an effort to catch up. Nuyorican sends up a group piece about scoring life experiences slam-style. San Francisco's Denise Jolly uses an amazing singing voice to good effect, working a few bars of "Amazing Grace" into a poem about her mother.

All four members of Team Albuquerque turn into restaurant kitchen workers in a tightly-choreographed piece about the service industry grind, but only Christian Drake can match St. Paul's emotion with his poem that recalls the Samson and Delilah story. Hair becomes a record of memories, "a slow film reel of our lives blowing in the wind". Drake is in tears toward the end as the poem twists into an explanation of why he cut his locks after a lover left him.

In the end, St. Paul takes the night, winning every round but the last. All the teams share the stage, and everyone shares stories and favorites in the lobby.

It's been a long week, but everyone's keenly aware how soon the family reunion will be over. Most of the poets and their friends head to 10@2 for the afterparty, and a few reconvene at the hotel. A bottle of wine makes its way around a table. People pair off on patio benches. And back inside, in one of the convention rooms, poets pull up chairs or floor space and the slam continues, with no judges, timekeepers or numbers. It's one last chance for the poets to read their material to each other, and even Mike McGee shows up to do a piece, spurred on by wine and some prodding.

The game of poetry tag goes on late into the morning [A Cypher Circle], and maybe it's just the fuzzy aftermath that takes away my memory of the specifics, but any poet will tell you the same thing: You end up hearing as many great things in these late night impromptu readings as anywhere else. Why then the slam?

The details differ in the history books, but it's a good bet that poetry started with a fire. People huddled around for warmth, telling each other stories to give their breath some meaning besides another sigh. Somewhere along the line, we tamed the cold in other ways, but we still miss the stories.

So every once in awhile, somebody has to start a fire.

It's a theory.

Slam Tutorial: Embrace Your Inner Nerd - Generally

Your secret shame, be it Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potty, audiences love it when you Embrace Your Inner Nerd. If you secretly love a nerdy topic, your audience likely does, too. Embrace it, milk it and push the limits.
If you can liken your nerd-love to real-world topics, either dramatic or humorous, you can greatly win over an audience. Half the fun is indulging in your nerdy passion, the other half is making it relevant to an audience who may only have a tangential relationship to the topic.

There are several subspecies, the most common of which is: Stereotypical Nerd

Shappy Seasholtz's "I Am That Nerd" is not just a celebration of all that is nerdy - alluding to Star Wars, real world scientists Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, E.T. and A.L.F. - but also great slam poems.
The poem touches on these topics to give reference but doesn't delve into them so deeply that the audience might get lost, for instance, "Han Solo hit / on Boba Fett that caused him to fall into the / Sarlac pit?" is perhaps the most obscure science fiction reference and even it isn't all that deep. He easily could have explored the metaphor into generally known Star Wars canon and even obscurely known fanon, yet keeps the poem flowing on the surface level so that those who have only seen the original Star Wars trilogy once can keep in touch.
On the poetic side, "I Am That Nerd" mimics Saul Williams' manifesto "Sha Clack Clack," one of the best-known poems in the national poetry slam scene, Williams' spiritualistic poem "Ohm," and Kayo's "Who Am I?"
Shappy's title "I Am That Nerd" is a direct allusion to Williams' hook line "I am that nigga," from "Sha Clack Clack."

"I Am That Nerd"
By Shappy Seasholtz

I am that nerd
I am that eternal nerd of spoken word
What can I say?
Spent all my rent money buying action figures on eBay!
I didn't come over to chit-chat
I came here to role-play!
I will smite thee with my 12-sided die
You better watch out
Cuz I'm coming atcha with my nerd eye!
I'm rocking you like Geddy Lee
I'd talk to more girls if they didn't make me
want to pee
myself
I'm a magical elf
Keep your hands off my Star Wars shelf
That's right bitch -- that's a Jawa with its
original plastic cape
Don't that flip your switch?
Like the switch Han Solo hit
on Boba Fett that caused him to fall into the
Sarlac pit?
Lest we forget!
I'm coming at you in 3-D
Keepin' it reel with two EE's, y'see?
And there's nothing you can do
Cuz I'm so much nerdier and smarter than you!
I had Stephen Hawking -- gawking and gasping
for air
Blew his mind with my knowledge and he fell
out of his chair!
I beat Matthew Broderick at war games with my Atari
I dug up Einstein's bones and made them say I'm sorry
for that weak-ass theory of relativity
Cuz MC Squared=Me, see?
I'm the plastic baby Jesus in your mind's nativity
I'll deprogram your mind with my Commodore 64
I'm so rich with nerd power
I make Bill Gates feel poor!
I will kidnap George Lucas from Skywalker ranch
and lock him in my basement until he removes
Jar-Jar Binks from every frame of Phantom Menace
and Attack of the Clones and replaces him with me!
For I am an ancient Jedi Knight; only Yoda could be older
I knocked Mork's space egg out of orbit and made it crash in Boulder
I'm the one who gave Darth Vader asthma
I liquefied Alf and E.T. and drank their plasma
Only I can unravel the mystery of the Sith
Cuz I knocked over the Black Monolith
with my boner!
Bet you didn't see that one cumming!
I'm a mystical nerd shaman who never stops
drumming on your stupid, stupid mind!
I'm the Original Star Trek and you are
Deep Space Nine!
I spin webs round your soul like Spidey on acid
Because my nerd rocket is taking off
And your shit be flaccid -- OHM!

Shappy attended Eastern Michigan University on a speech scholarship and went on to win two National Forensics titles in After Dinner speaking and Dramatic Duo. He also acted and directed several plays including Pop Manifesto (a one-act play Shappy wrote in which all of the dialogue was commercial jingles) which won Shappy an undergraduate Symposium Award.

After college, Shappy joined The Great Theatre Migration of 91 to Chicago. He formed several theatre companies with his college buddies and wrote and performed his own material. One show was a throwback to the Living Newspaper of the Great Depression era in which current events were acted out on stage called Every Speck Of Dust That Falls To Earth. Shappy also worked with members of the Neo-futurists for a musical about quantum physics.

Shappy eventually discovered the Poetry Slam at The Green Mill and wound up being taped (and bleeped twice) for CNN. He won a slam and ended up touring with Lollapalooza 1994, spreading the word of Nerd Power and making lots of friends along the way. The next year he "Shappy-roned" the first ever Austin slam team to the Nationals and has been an honorary Austin poet ever since, performing at nearly every South by Southwest the last 8 years.

Shappy then tried his schtick in the Chicago comedy scene. He hosted his own live talk show (Nite Cap with Shap) and appeared in the Chicago Comedy Festival 4 times including the Neil Hamburger Show. He also appeared regularly at Midnight Bible School at the legendary Second City.

Shappy has competed at a National Poetry Slam only once so far for the Mad Bar team in 2000. He made it as far as the Individual Semis and was asked to perform in Denmark with Beau Sia and Shayne Koyczan.

Shappy has had 2 books published by Kapow! Press including Little Book Of Ass which won a Firecracker Award for best poetry in 2000. He also has a CD called Poet/Comedian/Asshole available.

He now resides in NYC pursuing all things fun and poetic. In the 6 months he has been in New York he has performed at several colleges, slammed Soundheim lyrics at Joe's Pub, improved with the Upright Citizen's Brigade, auditioned for Mad TV and can be found bartending at Bob Holman's latest venture, The Bowery Poetry Club.

In his spare time Shappy plays Scrabble with his super-hot girlfriend Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, reads lots of comic books and dreams of one day owning a crime-solving wiener dog named Wallingford.



"Sha Clack Clack"
By Saul Williams

If I could find the spot where truth echoes
I would stand there and whisper memories of my children's future
I would let their future dwell in my past
so that I might live a brighter now
Now is the essence of my domain and it contains
all that was and will be
And I am as I was and will be because I am and always will be
that nigga
I am that nigga
I am that nigga
I am that timeless nigga that swings on pendulums like vines
through mines of booby trapped minds that are enslaved by time
I am the life that supersedes lifetimes, I am
It was me with serpentine hair and a timeless stare
that with immortal glare turned mortal fear into stone time capsules
They still exist as the walking dead, as I do
The original sulphurhead, symbol of life and matriarchy
severed head Medusa, I am
I am that nigga
I am that nigga!
I am that nigga!!
I am a negro! Yes negro, negro from "necro" meaning death
I overcame it so they named me after it
And I be spitting at death from behind
and putting "Kick Me" signs on it's back
because I am not the son of Sha-Clack-Clack
I am before that,
I am before
I am before before
Before death is eternity,
after death is eternity
There is no death there's only eternity
And I be riding on the wings of eternity
like HYAH! HYAH! HYAH!
Sha-Clack-Clack
but my flight doesn't go undisturbed
Because time makes dreams defer
And all of my time fears are turning my days into daymares
And I live daymares reliving nightmares
of what taunted my past
Sha-Clack-Clack, time is beatin' my ass
And I be havin' dreams of chocolate covered watermelons
Filled with fried chickens like pinatas
With little pickaninny sons and daughters
standing up under them with big sticks and aluminum foil
Hittin' em, tryin' to catch pieces of fallin' fried chicken wings
And Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben are standing in the corners
with rifles pointed at the heads of the little children
"Don't shoot the children," I shout, "don't shoot the children!"
but they say it's too late
They've already been infected by time
But that shit is before my time
I need more time
I need more time
But it's too late
They start shooting at children and killing them!
One by one,
two by two,
three by three,
four by four
Five by five,
six by six, but
my spirit is growing seven by seven
Faster than the speed of light
Cause light only penetrates the darkness that's already there
and I'm already there
I'm here at the end of the road
which is the beginning of the road beyond time, but
where my niggaz at?

Oh shit, don't tell me my niggaz got lost in time
My niggaz are dying before their time
My niggaz are serving unjust time
My niggaz are dying because of.. time