Buy your tickets now for the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, Oct. 13

Buy your tickets now for the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, Oct. 13

Click here to buy your tickets now.

Sedona's Studio Live hosts a poetry slam Saturday, Oct. 13, starting at 7:30 p.m. featuring Las Vegas poet Nodalone and hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham.

All poets are welcome to compete for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize. The prize is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporter Jeanne Freeland.

The slam is the first of the 2012-13 season, which will culminate in selection of Sedona's second National Poetry Slam Team, the foursome and alternate who will represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Boston and Cambridge, Mass., in August. (Assuming, of course, the Mayans don't destroy the world in December 2012. Or the  Québécois in January 2013. If you thought the Mayan calendar was apocalyptic, just wait until the Québécois get their shot ....)

The local poets will share the stage with 300 of the top poets in the United States, Canada and Europe, pouring out their words in a weeklong explosion of expression.

Sedona sent its five-poet first team to the 2012 National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C.

Nodalone

Nodalone - Shaun Srivistava - is the first featured poet of the Sedona
Poetry Slam Season. Nodalone will feature Saturday, Oct. 13.

Nodalone — born Shaun Srivastava — is a spoken word artist currently residing in Las Vegas. While quietly writing for years, Nodalone began performing his work in late 2010 in Flagstaff. Ever since, the poet has continued to bring his poems to life on stage at slams and various events throughout the country.

Preferring to use his platform to address current political, cultural and social issues, Nodalone gives a performance that captures the power of the issue with a personal and passionate style.

Nodalone is the 2011 FlagSlam Grand Slam Champion and a member of both the 2011 and 2012 FlagSlam National Poetry Slam Teams.

He prefers hugs to handshakes, and is a raging baby animal enthusiast.

Sedona Poetry Slam

To compete in the slam, poets need at least three original poems, each three minutes long or shorter. No props, costumes or musical accompaniment are permitted. All types of poetry are welcome.

The slam will be hosted by Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on six FlagSlam National Poetry Slams in 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2012.

Contact Graham at foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up to slam.

What is Poetry Slam?

Founded in Chicago in 1984, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport. 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.

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 their audience with their creativity.

2013 Sedona National Poetry Slam Team

Last year, five poets represented Sedona at the week-long National
Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C. In August 2013, NPS will be held in
Boston and Cambridge, Mass. Will you be among them? Or will you
help choose who represents Red Rock Country in Beantown?

Competing poets earn points with each Sedona Poetry Slam performance between September and May. Every poet earns 1 point for performing or hosting. First place earns 3 additional points, second place earns 2 and third place earns 1.

Based on points, the top 12 poets in May are eligible to compete for the four slots on the Sedona Poetry Slam Team, which will represent the community and Studio Live at the 2013 National Poetry Slam in Boston. Poets can compete for multiple teams during a season and still be eligible to compete in the Sedona team.

For poetry slam standings, videos from past slams, and updates, visit foxthepoet.blogspot.com.

Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 the day of the event, available  online at studiolivesedona.com.

Click here to buy your tickets now.

Studio Live is located at 215 Coffee Pot Drive, West Sedona. For more information, call (928) 282-2688.

Nodalone features at the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, Oct. 13

Nodalone features at the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, Oct. 13

Sedona's Studio Live hosts a poetry slam Saturday, Oct. 13, starting at 7:30 p.m. featuring Las Vegas poet Nodalone and hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham.

All poets are welcome to compete for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize. The prize is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporter Jeanne Freeland.

The slam is the first of the 2012-13 season, which will culminate in selection of Sedona's second National Poetry Slam Team, the foursome and alternate who will represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Boston and Cambridge, Mass., in August. (Assuming, of course, the Mayans don't destroy the world in December 2012. Or the  Québécois in January 2013. If you thought the Mayan calendar was apocalyptic, just wait until the Québécois get their shot ....)

The local poets will share the stage with 300 of the top poets in the United States, Canada and Europe, pouring out their words in a weeklong explosion of expression.

Sedona sent its five-poet first team to the 2012 National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C.

Nodalone

Nodalone - Shaun Srivistava - is the first featured poet of the SedonaPoetry Slam Season.
Nodalone will feature Saturday, Oct. 13.

Nodalone — born Shaun Srivastava — is a spoken word artist currently residing in Las Vegas. While quietly writing for years, Nodalone began performing his work in late 2010 in Flagstaff. Ever since, the poet has continued to bring his poems to life on stage at slams and various events throughout the country.

Preferring to use his platform to address current political, cultural and social issues, Nodalone gives a performance that captures the power of the issue with a personal and passionate style.

Nodalone is the 2011 FlagSlam Grand Slam Champion and a member of both the 2011 and 2012 FlagSlam National Poetry Slam Teams.

He prefers hugs to handshakes, and is a raging baby animal enthusiast.

Sedona Poetry Slam

To compete in the slam, poets need at least three original poems, each three minutes long or shorter. No props, costumes or musical accompaniment are permitted. All types of poetry are welcome.

The slam will be hosted by Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on six FlagSlam National Poetry Slams in 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2012.

Contact Graham at foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up to slam.

What is Poetry Slam?

Founded in Chicago in 1984, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport. 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.

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 their audience with their creativity.

2013 Sedona National Poetry Slam Team

Competing poets earn points with each Sedona Poetry Slam performance between September and May. Every poet earns 1 point for performing or hosting. First place earns 3 additional points, second place earns 2 and third place earns 1.

Based on points, the top 12 poets in May are eligible to compete for the four slots on the Sedona Poetry Slam Team, which will represent the community and Studio Live at the 2013 National Poetry Slam in Boston. Poets can compete for multiple teams during a season and still be eligible to compete in the Sedona team.

For poetry slam standings, videos from past slams, and updates, visit foxthepoet.blogspot.com.

Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 the day of the event, available at Golden Word Books and Music, 3150 W. SR 89A, and online at studiolivesedona.com.

Studio Live is located at 215 Coffee Pot Drive, West Sedona. For more information, call (928) 282-2688.

The 2012 FlagSlam National Poetry Slam Team

Photo by Tara Graeber

The 2012 FlagSlam National Poetry Slam Team: Ryan Brown, left, Grand Slam Champion Christopher Fox Graham, Shaun "Nodalone" Srivastava and Tara Pollock. Jackson Morris won the alternate's slot.

The 2012 FlagSlam National Poetry Slam Team was decided Sunday, April 29, at Sundara in Flagstaff.

Christopher Fox Graham narrowly edged out SlamMaster Ryan Brown by 0.1 for the Grand Slam Champion title. This will be Graham's sixth team (2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2012) and Brown's fourth (2008, 2009, 2010, 2012).
Coming in tied at third was rookie Tara Pollock (2012) and last year's Grand Slam Champion Shaun "Nodalone" Srivastava (2011, 2012).
Rookie Jackson Morris (2012) will be the team's alternate and coming with us to Charlotte, N.C., for the National Poetry Slam.

The five of us will publish a team chapbook later this summer to help raise funds for the trip. Reserve your copy now ....

Photo by Tara Graeber

The 2012 FlagSlam Grand Slam competitors: Tara Pollock, left, Ryan Brown, Spencer Troth, Christopher Fox Graham, Tyler "Valence" Sirvinskas, Dan Rivera (front), Evan Dissinger (back), Josh Wiss, Victoria Nancy Eakin, Shaun "Nodalone" Srivastava, Vincent Ed-Venture "Vincent Vega" Simone and Jackson Morris.

Congrats to the other Grand Slam finalists Evan Dissinger, Spencer Troth, Victoria (Nancy) Eakin, Tyler "Valence" Sirvinskas, Vincent Vega, Josh Wiss, Dan Rivera who put on a stellar competition.

The 12 of us will be appearing the Poets of FlagSlam 2012-2013 Calendar due out later this year. Reserve your copy now ....

Photo by Tara Graeber

The poets of FlagSlam video by Tara Graeber

"Stories Through Poetry," the poets of FlagSlam from Tara Graeber with additional camerawork by Naomi Thalenbergon Vimeo.

One of my favorite videos in a long time. Slam poets spitting verses in our familiar locales, off the slam stage. The music is a great addition, too.

Starring Christopher Fox Graham, Evan Dissinger, Ryan Brown, Shaun Srivastava, Mikel Weisser.

"Line in the Sands," by nodalone

"Line in the Sands," by nodalone aka Shaun Srivastava, third round poem in the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, July 30, 2011.

"Line in the Sands"

by nodalone 
from the 2011 FlagSlam National Poetry Slam team chapbook "Gossamer Outrage"

At this very moment
in this great state of Arizona
we have congressmen sipping brandy
out of crystal clear snifters with white supremacists
up in Kingman
correlating Mexicans with empty bunk beds
in private prisons that haven’t even been built yet

laughing amongst themselves
comparing the thread counts in their satin sheet disguise
while their allegedly more educated children size up
ivory husk flecked business cards on wall street
and strategize
on how to sell credit default swaps and derivatives
and scams as grand as Egyptian pyramids
trying to tell college kids
staying up all night searching for scholarships
that the “American Dream”
is still alive
even though we can’t seem to escape the fact that it reeks
of formaldehyde

all while the powers that be perpetrate “patriotic ideas”
like repealing the 14th Amendment
to better protect the American public
from the imminent tidal wave
of little brown “anchor babies” and such nasty liberal tactics
as the “Dream Act” that they fancy to frame in a Pandora’s Box called amnesty

so what does one power broker of cultural purity say to the other?
“oh. I know,
we’ll call it SB 1070”
better get your papers, please
matter of fact I think this is a fake ID
step outta the car, Pedro, and get down on your fucking knees
start praying to that blond-haired
blue-eyed Jesus the same way
Governor Jan Brewer does every night before she slips off into her sweet slumber
resting comfortably on her California King sleep number
tallying migrant worker fatalities like counting sheep
before they’re sent off to slaughter

it’s time to tell our “glorious” war hero of a senator
that this country will not be reduced to Berlin
in the mid 1980s
metal walls and electric fences need only be reserved for cattle in this country
you would think that John McCain would be able to better understand
what it means
to be wrongfully imprisoned
simply for crashing in another man’s land

what was that he said again?
“finish the dang fence already?”
desperately pandering to
hypermedicated
understimulated
overweight
postmenopausal baby boomer blank faces
hiding behind the thick irony of straw gardening hats used to lynch Lipton tea bags
who can’t even navigate their way through a subway to order a ham sandwich

so who you gonna stand with?
NPG Cable and Cox Communications don’t collectively control enough
bandwidth
and there are not enough like-minded activists in this great state
to halt the implementation
of this blatantly racist legislative injustice

how much longer must we wait?
until we see Sheriff Joe Arpaio
dressed in standard-issue
Maricopa County pink jumpsuits sporting
stainless steel shackles enraged
developing strain polyps encaged
behind miles and miles of 20-foot tall chain-link fences

why don’t we just erase the border altogether
and sever the umbilical cord that is funneling federal funding
to that double-wide tractor trailer mechanical combine
of ignorance and hate
that is raping lady liberty and get back to
what that statue on Ellis Island really means

to be that faint glimmer at the end of the tunnel
for those families willing to risk their lives
so their children can grow up to one day realize
that opportunity
is more than that just an abstract term in the middle of an English dictionary

so why does it seem so quiet?
you should be rocking back and forth red in the face and screaming
hell, you’re already on top of the mountain
why don’t you go home and
Google Jim Crow and
come back next week and start shouting

because you see the truth is
history …
is gonna judge our generation
not by what we believed in,
but by what we didn’t.

Copyright 2011 © nodalone Shaun Srivastava

nodalone

Photo courtesy of Tara Graeber

nodalone 

Originally from East Lansing, Mich., Shaun Srivastava, aka nodalone, moved to Flagstaff in 2008 to attend Northern Arizona University.

While quietly writing poetry for many years, nodalone has only recently begun performing his spoken word at slams and various events throughout Arizona.

Preferring to use his platform to address current political, cultural, and social issues, the poet gives a performance that captures the power of the issue in a personal and passionate style.

He will complete degrees in both exercise science and psychology in 2012, with plans to pursue a master’s degree in psychology.

"Rhetoric," by nodalone

"Rhetoric," by nodalone aka Shaun Srivastava, second round poem in the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, July 30, 2011.

Rhetoric

By nodalone

Photo courtesy of Tara Graeber

nodalone 

It’s three grand a plate
At a private estate
For a two-hour conservative ladies’ luncheon
For new up-and-comers
That reads
“Plus one” on the invitation
It’s stepping up and carving out your own pound of flesh
It’s cheeky bumper stickers in succession until they’re finally convinced
It’s a little black cocktail dress with stilettos and fishnets
Its sephora war paint skepticism
It’s a bastardized and perpetually rewritten religion
It’s a brand of polyamorous submission so private
They don’t even let God listen in
It’s warmed over and well-dressed aggression
It’s xenophobic
Head in the sand
Ass up ostrich resentment
It’s a black president
It’s young male Muslims in a Lexus
It’s your own
Gas guzzling
However thinly veiled distorted American reflection
In a roadside rest stop mirror
8
Playing kabuki theater with inarticulate
And confederate fears
It’s letting you think
That this time around
You’re actually gonna get a chance to steer
It’s blank checks made payable to national ignorance
It’s one dollar scratch-off lottery fingertips
It’s working class subdivision cul-de-sac competition
Its midday, Midtown Manhattan
And the living ghost off a broke Annie Leibovitz
Muttering to herself
“what the hell just happened?”
It’s every last fanatic in Westboro, Kansas
Googling Ayn Rand
Pistol gripping the fading light of white male protestant privilege
It’s the latest
Rabid
Cable news hit list
It’s Clear Channels’ 24-hour commitment to bearing false witness
It’s buy the ticket
Spin the wheel insanity
It’s cardboard cutout Christianity
Meets David Copperfield kind of clarity
Parroting
Permanent marker restroom crucifix comparisons
Swearing it’s the end of days
Praying your FaceBook
Crosshair topography conjures
Dueling Pennsylvania Avenue hand cannon
Constitutional revolution
It’s no longer innuendo
When your district representative
Has a handful of bullet holes through their front window
Yet when said rhetoric gets manifested in northwest Tucson
At about 10 a.m. on the second Saturday in January
Politics turns to puddles of platelets
In a department store parking lot
reflecting the irony of a red sign reading
“Safeway”
Within hours Jared Loughner was stuffed
Into a little metal coffin labeled
“deranged lone gunman”
Who had a hard-on for one Arizona congresswoman
It’s clearly not an act of terror
There’s no evidence to suggest
That her extended magazine trephining
Was in any way
Politically motivated
Nor a function of a certain contemporary
Brand of Republican rhetoric
Let’s not even dare postulate
As to the young man’s leanings
And ideologies
No, see
She’s just the latest
In a long
exhausting
seemingly continuous list
of victimized innocence
at the hands of some suburban kid’s
empty existential crisis
consigning patriotism for racism
at a gun show at three-fifths the price
despite
recycled arguments and incessant
Second Amendment references
their rhetoric remains infectious
as it falls on the ears of clear
and cloudy minds alike
but in this country
the difference between a sick kid
and a terrorist
is that one of those guys is white.

Copyright 2011 © nodalone Shaun Srivastava

nodalone

Originally from East Lansing, Mich., Shaun Srivastava, aka nodalone, moved to Flagstaff in 2008 to attend Northern Arizona University.

While quietly writing poetry for many years, nodalone has only recently begun performing his spoken word at slams and various events throughout Arizona.

Preferring to use his platform to address current political, cultural, and social issues, the poet gives a performance that captures the power of the issue in a personal and passionate style.

He will complete degrees in both exercise science and psychology in 2012, with plans to pursue a master’s degree in psychology.

"I Want to Be LeBron James" by nodalone

"I Want to Be LeBron James," by nodalone aka Shaun Srivastava, first round poem in the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, July 30, 2011.

nodalone

Photo courtesy of Tara Graeber

nodalone 

Originally from East Lansing, Mich., Shaun Srivastava, aka nodalone, moved to Flagstaff in 2008 to attend Northern Arizona University.

While quietly writing poetry for many years, nodalone has only recently begun performing his spoken word at slams and various events throughout Arizona.

Preferring to use his platform to address current political, cultural, and social issues, the poet gives a performance that captures the power of the issue in a personal and passionate style.

He will complete degrees in both exercise science and psychology in 2012, with plans to pursue a master’s degree in psychology.