"Need to Burn" by Christopher Fox Graham, Sedona Poetry Slam on Jan. 26, 2026 (video: Paul Jones Jr)

"Need to Burn"

By Christopher Fox Graham
Sedona Poetry Slam on Jan. 26, 2026
video by Paul Jones Jr.

we bring magic to this microphone

each one of us, a story to tell

some for the wordplay

some with tongue brushes

to landscape the canvas of your skull

these words are art

deprived of musical instrument

chiseled away from marble

cut out of canvas

a moment in a breath in time

you can put spoken word to paper,

but it doesn't live there

it lives in the space between

my lips and your ears

between the words on the page

and how you hear them in your mind

“fuck linear time,”

but read a poem backwards

and derive meaning from it

with answers more immediate

you can exercise your demons

overcome your trauma

forgive your sins

your hate

your pain

this stage brings healing if you want it

and many walk away recovered

but some of us are addicted

to others’ stories

to your story

so, we live in theirs

every poet on this mic

I don't want to heal

don't let this hurt softened

the damage undone

I come to feel

to relive those moments,

even the worst ones,

especially the worst ones:

the absent father

who taught me how not to be a man

the lost lovers

who left because of what I said

“They Held Hands”

my 9/11 poem

is not about the politics

but that moment

in Flagstaff

when i sat at a bar

and watched people like me

leap from the windows 

from the 92nd floor

they will never hear this poem

no matter how many times I perform it

they will never stop their fall

never gain wings

never touch the earth gently

they fall 

over 

and over 

and over

and I can't stop them

no matter how many times I spit the poem

I read it

to go back there

to that day

to relive that horror

to be here

but then

every poem about a dead poet is the same eulogy

For Chris Lane,

Jack McCarthy,

Aaron Norris,

David Blair,

Jack Egan,

Will Bell,

Rochelle Brener,

Andrea Gibson,

Rage Almighty,

Bowerbird,

Danny Solis,

The Klute

every time I say their names

they come back to me

I'm there with them

at the slams

the drunken walks home

the hotel room afterparties

the practices,

the workshopping,

the editing,

the shit-talking

the sharing stories of other poets

the memories

the moment that they died

reacting with a clenched heart

that can't bear to be broken again,

but always is

always has to be

I can't bring them back

hear a new poem they would have written

with another year,

another month,

another day to write it.

I don't say their names to heal,

but to live the loss 

again 

and again 

and again

it’s how I keep them alive

no poem can undo their sins or mine

no matter how furiously I scribble,

or what scores you give me

that's not how this works

“fuck linear time”

but we can't go back and

unsay, undo,

un-live these things

Some poets write for therapy

to forgive

to heal

to be unbroken

I don't

I need this to burn

I need this pain

it's what made me

it's why I'm here now

not across town

drinking whiskey or wine

blissfully healed and happy

I'm here to go back to those places

to relive those moments

to be back in that skin

that moment 

that hurts

that cuts fresh down to the bone

bleeds out in syllable and simile

I'm more scar tissue than skin now

a bag of broken bones 

mended by metaphors

duct tape 

and poet spit

if you can make this, [points to head]

feel that [points to heart]

with this [lips]

that’s poetry

all the rest of this is pageantry and window dressing,

pretty packaging we discard for what's inside

that's why I do this

why slam is a drug I can’t quit

if someone could cure this

cleave slam and poetry from memory

I would refuse it

so I want to ache on your words,

poets, wordsmiths, heartbreakers and life-livers

I want to be deep in those moments with you

live like you were you, then

feel what you felt, then

inside you is a hurricane

spinning around your best and worst moments,

waiting for the proper breath to exhale them

a tsunami of ache and longing

and broken moments that made you

some of us don't want salvation

some of don’t want to heal

some of us want to burn

you, poet, 

are an atom bomb

with blowtorch lips

light up this room

and burn it down to the foundation

leave this audience

in ashes

"Need to Burn" by Christopher Fox Graham

Photo by David Jolkovski/Larson Newspapers

"Need to Burn"

by Christopher Fox Graham

Oct. 13, 2025

we bring magic to this microphone
each one of us, a story to tell
some for the wordplay
some with tongue brushes
to landscape the canvas of your skull

these words are art
deprived of musical instrument
chiseled away from marble
cut out of canvas
a moment in a breath in time

you can put spoken word to paper,
but it doesn't live there
it lives in the space between
my lips and your ears
between the words on the page
and how you hear them in your mind

“fuck linear time,”

but read a poem backwards
and derive meaning from it

with answers more immediate
you can exercise your demons
overcome your trauma
forgive your sins

your hate

your pain

this stage brings healing if you want it
and many walk away recovered
but some of us are addicted
to others’ stories
to your story
so, we live in theirs
every poet on this mic

I don't want to heal
don't let this hurt softened
the damage undone

I come to feel
to relive those moments,
even the worst ones,

especially the worst ones:

the absent father
who taught me how not to be a man
the lost lovers
who left because of what I said

“They Held Hands”
my 9/11 poem
is not about the politics
but that moment
in Flagstaff

when i sat at a bar
and watched people like me
leap from the windows 

from the 92nd floor

they will never hear this poem
no matter how many times I perform it

they will never stop their fall
never gain wings
never touch the earth gently
they fall 

over 

and over 

and over

and I can't stop them

no matter how many times I spit the poem

I read it

to go back there

to that day

to relive that horror
to be here

but then

every poem about a dead poet is the same eulogy
For Chris Lane,
Jack McCarthy,
Aaron Norris,
David Blair,
Jack Egan,
Will Bell,
Rochelle Brener,
Andrea Gibson,
Rage Almighty,

Bowerbird,
Danny Solis,
The Klute

every time I say their names
they come back to me

I'm there with them

at the slams

the drunken walks home

the hotel room afterparties

the practices,

the workshopping,

the editing,

the shit-talking

the sharing stories of other poets

the memories

the moment that they died

reacting with a clenched heart

that can't bear to be broken again,

but always is

always has to be

I can't bring them back
hear a new poem they would have written
with another year,
another month,
another day to write it.

I don't say their names to heal,
but to live the loss 

again 

and again 

and again

it’s how I keep them alive

no poem can undo their sins or mine
no matter how furiously I scribble,
or what scores you give me

that's not how this works

“fuck linear time”

but we can't go back and
unsay, undo,

un-live these things

Some poets write for therapy
to forgive
to heal
to be unbroken

I don't

I need this to burn

I need this pain

it's what made me
it's why I'm here now
not across town
drinking whiskey or wine
blissfully healed and happy

I'm here to go back to those places
to relive those moments
to be back in that skin
that moment 

that hurts

that cuts fresh down to the bone

bleeds out in syllable and simile

I'm more scar tissue than skin now

a bag of broken bones 

mended by metaphors

duct tape 

and poet spit

if you can make this, [points to head]
feel that [points to heart]
with this [lips]

that’s poetry

all the rest of this is pageantry and window dressing,
pretty packaging we discard for what's inside
that's why I do this
why slam is a drug I can’t quit

if someone could cure this

cleave slam and poetry from memory
I would refuse it

so I want to ache on your words,
poets, wordsmiths, heartbreakers and life-livers
I want to be deep in those moments with you

live like you were you, then

feel what you felt, then

inside you is a hurricane
spinning around your best and worst moments,
waiting for the proper breath to exhale them
a tsunami of ache and longing
and broken moments that made you

some of us don't want salvation

some of don’t want to heal

some of us want to burn

you, poet, 

are an atom bomb
with blowtorch lips
light up this room
and burn it down to the foundation

leave this audience

in ashes

Photo by David Jolkovski/Larson Newspapers

"Lumberjacking is the World's Most Dangerous Profession" ... for 2023

 

lumberjacking is the world’s most dangerous profession
falling trees and limbs slay lumberjacks at a rate
30 times higher than average
breaking bones a dozen times daily

these arms are not built to fell trees
these hands not built to wield axes or chainsaws
I am no lumberjack
but I know the sound of a tree falling in a forest
we do not know how many died
to build this stage
to erect these room
to raise this roof

poetry is the world’s most dangerous art form
suicide and addiction and overdose slay poets
at a rate not measured by the Bureau of Statistics
because we do not list "poet" as a profession
no matter how deep is in our bones

but I am a poet

these arms were built to climb trees
these hands to wield pen and microphone
the sound of a poet falling in a forest
sounds so much like a tree
even the Earth can't tell the difference
we do not know how many died
to raise this roof
to erect these room
to build this stage

I know no dead lumberjacks
but if I were to inscribe the names of all the dead poets
this body would be inkwell:

one drowned in the heat of lonely city

one swallowing pills to stay afloat

one whose rage
could make even ghosts bleed

one who heard his son cry
but only once

one who found refuge in a bottle

until his liver took his heart in the divorce

one who shotgunned the worst of him
across pages of the best of him

one who swam with men in grey suits
but died alone in the desert

one with the Will of a Haymaker
now Basquiating himself
with a heroin needle
refusing to hear us say 

"stop"

one who swam into the river
never intending to reach the far shore

one who relived his golden age
overdosing on methadone

one who named his son Oren
and told us to look it up
wrote that one day his son would fall,
but a poet would there to catch him

and another poet

and another

and another

I know no lumberjacks
but I know they must weep like I do
whenever these names come flooding back

we do not build furniture or homes or monuments or empires
tangibility that can exist without the living
we only leave behind our words
which yellow and age over time
only existing if we read or speak them
but there are too many words now
and not enough time
and I'm beginning to forget
and there's no one here to help

lumberjacks take refuge in the woods
work beneath the leaves
take revenge on the limbs and trees
that slew their brothers
but we poets have nowhere to go
but back to these pages
to these microphones
to these slam stages
where we pour out our rage
it's why we're always shouting
a Dead Poets Society
is trapped in our throats

I'm not even supposed to be here
there's too much sin,
sloth
and pride
to be a Speaker of the Dead
to bear this burden of survivor
I am the Devil's bad luck
and the Grim Reaper's off days

I am tired of burying our dead
of toasting our fallen as conquering heroes
of retelling all the same old stories
to those old poets who can remember
before the needle drained
the pills slowed
the bullet shattered
the depression became too much to bear

I am tired of telling new young poets
about who came before
or how their newest stanza
can make me weep
because it sounds so much like someone
they can read but never meet
they don't need this added weight
while learning to fly
I am tired of telling still-living poets
with one foot in the graveyard
and one hand on a needle
that I don't deserve to outlive them

one poet named his son “Pine Tree” in Hebrew
wrote that one day he would fall
I am no lumberjack
but I will ready to catch him
because a poet said to


I can build nothing
but this
this is a promise I can keep

Friends remember The Klute, aka Bernard Schober (1973-2022)

The Klute, aka Bernard Joseph Schober
(Feb. 8, 1973-July 18, 2022)

Photo by David Jolkovski/Larson Newspapers

The Klute, aka Bernard Schober (Feb. 8, 1973-July 18, 2022), died following a hike on Monday, July 18. There is a new story at the bottom of this post if you want to read the specifics. If you don't, stop when I write about Klute's last public post.

Memorial SERViCES

It is with profound sadness that the family and friends of Bernard Joseph Schober announce his passing. Please find information on both his viewing and remembrance ceremonies below.

Green Acres Mortuary & Cemetery
401 N Hayden Rd
Scottsdale, AZ 85257

[Map]

Viewing Ceremony
Saturday, July 23, 2022
3pm-7pm
Green Acres Mortuary & Cemetery
Main Building.

Celebration of Life
Saturday, August 13, 2022
4pm-8pm
Green Acres Mortuary & Cemetery
In the chapel
First hour dedication
Food and drinks available

Aug, 12, 2022
Hi everyone-
This is Bob. Thank you for your patience as we worked through the details to be able to webcast the Celebration of Life for Bernard. The event is tomorrow [Saturday, Aug. 13], and the details of time and place are listed on his website, theKlute.com.
This event will be live-streamed on Facebook, via this official page, The Klute, located at: https://www.facebook.com/TheKlute
While the service begins at 4pm, we will initiate the stream at 3:45 MST (or Pacific Time), or as close to it as we can. Please know that during the stream:
- We will not be able to respond to comments, and comments will not be shared with the live audience.
- Quality may suffer based on Internet availability. While we have secured an exclusive hotspot for access to stream with, it is still a wireless connection, and subject to the limitations of such.
Thank you all for the outreach to make sure that you had a way to be a part of this event. Should you have any questions, please feel free to DM Bob Nelson or message on The Klute's Page.

In the meantime, I process my grief I suppose the way any newspaperman does, by publishing the words and photos and stories of others so that you, dear readers, can use your own wisdom to weigh the measure of a man. I don't know how else to act. I will write about my feelings is a later post; I worked on this for the last 7 hours. This is still too fresh.

My wife Laura holding one of our oldest daughter's favorite stuffed animals. Athena loves sharks and loved when Klute would talk to her about them when visiting our house.

The last time I saw Klute in person was May 26 just after we brought our newborn twins home from the hospital. Klute performed in Sedona and was heading home when I begged him to turn around and pop in to see Athena because she had gotten all of her sharks ready to show off.
He visited and made a little 3-year-old girl feel very special.

I'll just say this:

I knew Klute 22 years. He helped me grieve the death of Christopher Lane when I could not grieve with anyone else. He was a slam rival and ally (the two are simultaneous in our sport), was groomsman at my bachelor party and wedding and one of my best friends. We talked politics and life in person and online and I valued his counsel in all things. 

Klute was a good man. 

I loved him as a brother.

I mourn him now.

See what all his others friends have to say:

Jessica Ballantyne-Keller

My best friend passed yesterday. 

I loved Bernard Schober like he was my family. 

He was my family. 

I cherished his friendship so much. 

He saved my life literally three times. 

I am currently completely lost after finding out this morning.

In lieu of flowers please donate to https://sharkangels.org

Bernard Schober was my best friend. 

I don’t just mean he was my best friend because we were like family,

I also mean he was the best person who was also my closest friend. 

I keep looking at his page, because I’m amazed at all the good Bernard did. I watch in real time as another story rolls in, how good of a human he was. 

To be honest, I always knew he was a good person. Seeing it posted in real time from hundreds of people is a completely different story and I didn’t fathom on any level how amazing of a human my best friend really was. 

Grief is selfish. 

Grief says he was mine to mourn on a level that I didn’t think anyone else deserved to. 

But that just isn’t true because everyone lost him,

And to think of all the good he was going to do after all the good he had already done is just mind blowing and I can’t possibly hold all of that to myself. 

It’s an impossible feat. 

He was an impossible feat. 

From open heart surgeries to diving with sharks to writing his poetry. 

There are some of you out there who have told me how much this man respected and loved me. 

I know he did. Even on days I didn’t deserve it. 

But I also know how many of you he loved and respected. And exactly the reasons why. 

It’s no less than every single one of you who has a Klute story. I’m dead serious. 

He saw the good in everyone. 

He was sometimes the only good thing about me. 

I walked a little taller when I was with Klute. 

I sent him my poetry to go over, and he sent me his. 

I could never be the poet he was because he could arrange words like houses of cards.  I always felt like I was grabbing bingo balls from a cage. 

I beat him one time at slam. One time. 

I rode that victory for two weeks straight. And he let me. He made it to almost every single one of the birthday parties I had for as long as I knew him. 

We sang karaoke together. 

He would call me while he was visiting his dad in Florida while walking home from the bars, would miss his turn by two streets and somehow would still navigate home ok. 

We had a mutual hatred of United Airlines. 

And then there was the one time we flew to Texas together for Grand Slam on United, and I’m pretty sure that’s the only time I can remember we didn’t run into problems. 

I say Bernard saved my life three times. 

And on three seperate occasions he absolutely did. It’s not a figure of speech. 

He loved me unconditionally, just like he did with everyone in his inner circle. 

To say I miss him is a complete understatement. It’s the pain that keeps on giving. I’ve said before and I’ll say again it feels like I’ve lost a limb. 

I have gone to send him a text no less than a thousand times over the last two days and that’s the kind of pain that breaks a person. 

But I’m trying to remain steadfast. 

He wouldn’t have left if he didn’t think we couldn’t handle it. 

So I’m handling this. 

And because of him and his influence, I have so many of you to help lift up and who are helping lift me up. 

I will never forgive Bernard for making me make friends. 

Also he would have laughed at that. 

I have said a few times over the last few days that words have become very hard for me. And they still are. But I needed all of this to get out while I still had them rumbling around in my brain. 

I love you, Bernard.

Partners Bernard Schober and Teresa Newkirk

Lauren Perry

For the first two minutes of my morning when I woke up today Klute, it’s as if it never happened. As if the phone call at 2:29pm on July 18th hadn't occurred at all and it had just been a really awful dream, as so many nightmares tend to be. I remember this time years ago, when you dramatically called me and said “Lauren! I had a dream I was walking along the River Sphinx! And the toll man asked for my coins so I pulled them from my eyelids.” 

My birthday 2021. He made everything so much more special!

It's as if our entire friendship, you have been preparing me for this day and even still, I feel as if I am on stage with a blank piece of paper and my poem unmemorized. 

Classy tiki adventures at Captain's Cabin.

It still doesn't seem real; not hearing your voice again calling me through the phone, that you’ll never again stand in my doorway before we head to Captain's for tiki drinks with your newest tiki mug that is always better than mine. 

Tiki adventures: Cthulhu addition with his fancy new birthday tiki!

Where you will no doubt regale us with videos of the ocean of these beautiful sharks and massive stingrays from your adventures scuba diving in sunken, lost cities. We never got to go together. There’s so much we’ll never do again. I swear that someday you were going to tell me you had grown gills; it seems almost silly now I think about that now, but I was so happy for you when you found the ocean and fully embraced it. You deserved so much to be happy, you had so much love in your heart and you gave it without wanting or needing anything in return! 

Favorite memory, back in 2010. We'd just crushed a duet on stage and got a perfect 50 at the SLC Utah Arts Festival. We were clearly the coolest kids in school!

Your friendship was the best gift I could have ever received while still feeling undeserving of. To say you are my best friend is the understatement of the century, you are my other half! The Giles to my Buffy! I god damn love you so much more than I ever felt I could ever love another person and I'm so very appreciative that I had almost 20 years of knowing you while being in awe of your achievements, you're unending strength to push through challenges that would have crippled a normal person. To always know the right thing to say at the right moment. How did you always do that? You used to joke that I'd save your life at least two or three times but really, you saved mine.

Klute's birthday 2022. He was so happy and had such a great night!!!!

You never gave up on me or our friendship. In truth, I think we only truly ever fought a handful of times which is pretty great considering all those twelve-hour road trips, late night flights to Florida and poetry competitions, crammed together in overly priced hotels with the stresses of getting scored a perfect score on stage. 

Haunted house adventures 2021. We finally made it out of that blood corn maze after 30 minutes!

I'll never forget when you finally told me your real first name was Bernard or that you were actually from Illinois and let me think you were from Florida. Like who keeps that a secret?! You are so incredibly funny and only ever really messed with me a few times, but when you did it was really something! Like when you calmly said “oh yeah, my father is the zodiac killer” like it was nothing then just turned away to watch tv, letting it hang there casually in the air, and just let me sit there thinking your dad was actually the zodiac killer for thirty minutes then laughed at me for believing you! 

Dream team, killing it on stage 2013 at Copperstate with a duet.

Your sarcastic sense of humor was unmatched; a secret layer of your personality that you shared in the rarest of moments. You were so damn funny! You loved haunted houses but hated horror movies. Last year when we got lost in that corn maze when it was so bloody cold and had to have a clown walk us back to the front so we could go through the zombie house twice even though you hated zombies, but still waited 18 years to tell me because I love them. You believed that sharks were kind and gentle creatures so you saved clippings of newspaper articles about them in your journal. You wrote beautiful fun journal entries about food you’d tasted on your trips and were a phenomenal cook. You loved to dance but were very specific about to what kind of music. 

Nerd Slam, IWPS Flagstaff edition.

There are so many tiny details that make you up that I can't even begin to describe them all even as I think about every single one of them, every memory, every moment; I'm breathing through them, missing you. This is the longest we’ve ever gone without talking. All my life, I will cherish the time we had together, even as I wish there have been more. You are the true last king of Egypt. Klute, you’re dearest person close to my heart. Not a day will go by that I will not feel the absence of your presence. All my love.

نرجو أن تعيش إلى الأبد في حقل القصب. أفضل صديق لي. توأم روحي. لقد كنت جيدًا جدًا بالنسبة لهذا العالم.

May you live forever in the Field of Reeds. 

My best friend. 

My Soul Mate. 

You were too good for this world.

13th Floor Haunted House 2021. He jumped numerous times. It was awesome!

David Tabor

It is a thing. Most of us will remember “The Klute” in this way or some other variation being behind a microphone etc. Most of my time with him was spent with Bernard Schober if that makes any sense to anyone. 

I could probably say the same thing in some ways that most of you know “Tabor”. A larger than life version of myself that I present and manicure for others entertainment. It’s not that it is an bit per say, but it a cultivated part of my life.

Especially the last two years with the pandemic lingering. We moved our long standing Saturday coffee drinking to his backyard and was one of the few pillars of normalcy in my life left. That and work.

I feel like we’ll have something to commemorate at some point. It’s a tough call when you realized that you are probably that person who does this or should be a part of that. As another one who is in the “double income- no kids” club and also had a brush with mortality; I have wondered about who does what when I pass on.

Bill Campana

there is no way to ease into something as devastating as losing one who has been a part of your life for 22-years.  in a world gone haywire, Bernard Schober always made sense of the chaos.  he lived his life doing what he loved.  he won his final slam last week.  out with a bang.  he was the supreme traveling companion, soundboard for all incorrect comments, purveyor of good times, and always seemed to enjoy it when on saturday mornings during our 22-year coffee klatch he would freshen my coffee and i would say, "thanks, doll face."  we are all going to miss you, my friend.  the inner circle is going to spin out off balance for a long time.  word from teresa is while hiking on monday morning had a heart attack and dialed 911 on his cell phone.  doctors worked on him for an hour.  this is going to take some time to sink in.

The Klute and Marc Schaefer, dive buddies and partners in crime

"Awake"

by The Klute

(2015)

I swim through the Blue Eternal.

She feeds me.

Truth told, that's all I've ever cared about.

Her waters are an endless buffet.

Bring me a Harp seal, 

Tender mackrel,

Robust tuna!

From each meal to the next, I devour the seas 

One bite at a time.

At the top of the game,

Atop the food chain

Who's the Great White Shark.

Who's an eating machine to all the fishes.

They say that's shark's a bad mother...

Shut your mouth!

I *can't* shut my mouth.

If I do, I'll die.

Mother Ocean and I are tied together

Bound by the oxygen I take from her body.

Five gills fluttering as bloody flags in the briny breeze

Keep me alive and in your nightmares,

Chasing you through REM sleep,

Waking you up in a cold sweat, 

Your heart pounding so hard

I can hear it whisper to me as I ply through the shoals

Close to your shore-hugging homes,

Tickling my senses with promise and delight.

I envy you.

Wishing I could stop and drift away

Stop my constant forward motion.

I know other residents of the deep can do it.

I have felt the wings of stingrays pull covers of sand over their bodies

Suprised dreaming dolphins bobbing in the waves,

Watches eels slip into crevices and disappear.

It looks wonderful.

To be able to stop, feel the wave's embrace

Cradling me in her arms,

The only movement a gentle tidal dance. 

Dolphins always talk of dreaming.

When they close their eyes

They can let the currents carry them to places long forgotten,

To places never been.

They can swim with the dead that my kind took from them,

Or simply float to half-heard whale song from the unfathomable depths.

It looks and sounds wonderful,

But I can't stop, not even for a moment.

My life is a series of forward motions,

Punctuated by 

Dive,

     Speed up, 

              Surface,

ATTACK

Dive,

     Dive,

          Dive,

Keep moving forward

NEVER STOP,

Forward! Forward!

Surface, 

Attack, ATTACK, ATTACK!

Forward, forward, 

Never stop moving forward.

I am forever swimming towards death.

Mine, yours, theirs...

The line between such trivialities grows thinner

With each passing flick of my tail, each meal, every mate.

The hourglass will always be half-empty to someone 

Who can never stop to turn it over,

But sometimes I imagine what it would be like to stop.

If destiny wants me to keep moving,

Who am I to argue with destiny?

But I can slow myself down until I'm just... barely...

Moving.

      

I cannot close my eyes, 

So I let myself sink to where the light does not reach

My tail barely moves,

And I begin to think I know what it must be like

To live without perpetual motion.

So deep that the sounds of waves against rocks grows ever silent

I sink deeper,

              deeper,

                     deeper

Into the endless black of the infinite sea.

I feel my fins flutter gently and twitch

I begin to feel Mother Ocean embrace me

And it feels wonderful.

I cannot stop.

This is not what she created me to be.

Sometimes though, I think I know what dreaming is.

I do not need to stop,

I only need to slow down.

I only need to sleep. 

Laura Lacanette

Bernard Schober your time here was over too soon but you really lived the hell out of this life. I’m absolutely devastated for your family, your partner, and your many dear friends. 

Thank you for always being so kind and welcoming to an awkward newbie, for making space and encouraging others, for supporting the weird and offbeat without judgement. Your talent with poetry and comedy was something I looked up to and I feel honored to have been able to share space and get my ass kicked by you on stage. 

You always used your larger than life presence to bring people up. I’ll never forget when I performed a nerdy poem that bombed, only to look out into the crowd and see you and Lauren standing up cheering your heads off. I wish I could tell you how much you meant to me and how much you will be missed. 

I hope you’re somewhere swimming with sharks, winning all the slams, and pissing off online trolls. So long Klute, and thanks for all the fish.

Laura Lacanette, Russ Kazmierczak, the Klute and Lauren Perry at Phoenix Fan Fusion, or, 

Julie Elefante

Dear Klute,

Bernard Schober. I hate that you died because you were so damned good at living. My torso is a heavy fist, but it loosens its grip when I read all the eulogies collecting on your page and feel the love that you put out coming back in with the tides. The affirmation, the ebb and flow, is soothing. We grew up next to oceans on opposite ends of the country, but we always celebrated the kinship. When people are born and bred by the sea, it threads its silver hooks and fine white lines along their spines and sways them into sleep. In turn, people of the sea leave their lines in everyone they touch. What a wonderful net you wove through all of us, and how well you filled it. 

Here are stories, things I’m grateful for:

A lot of people have talked about their poetry friendships with you. You did all that for me, too. And even after I left slam behind, you always asked me if I was going to read whenever you saw me at poetry events. There’s something so validating when a well-known, well-loved writer tells you they want to hear your words, and you did that for a lot of us. Thank you for that.

Looking through my hard drive, looking for memories of you, I’ve found hundreds of documents—photos, art, and of course poems. All the edits, layouts, and final proofs for so many of your chapbooks and books from the last 17 years. I loved that you asked me to take care of these, partly because you knew I’ve always loved layouts and editing, and partly because you trusted me with it all. AND, for every book, I was guaranteed a delicious home-cooked meal, some fine drink, and an evening of cartoons and conversation. Thank you for giving me all these opportunities to let me express my own passions, for believing in me and trusting me with your own. 

For a few months, when you needed a place to stay, I offered you a room in a house I was renting. Thank you, Klute, for being one of those rare roommates who was easy to live with, for cleaning up after yourself and around the house, for paying your share of the rent and bills on time, for just adulting so well. Sorry you had to clean up that chicken bone in a sock; the previous roommate wasn’t so good.

At one point, I was struggling with money but too stubborn and proud to take handouts, so I was picking up side jobs here and there. You took me aside and told me you were looking for a sort of personal assistant. You’d find random chores and errands that I’m sure you were just making up—putting all your printed poems into a binders, sorting out a pile of stuff you said you wanted to list on eBay, stuff like that. You paid more than the work was worth, that you could’ve done yourself in far less time and much more efficiently. I told you I’d tried pawning stuff, and during one visit to my place, you asked if I still used my old bike from college. It was several years old, well-used, and banged up, but you said you’d been meaning to buy a bike and asked how much I originally paid for it, and that’s just about how much you gave me for it. I don’t know if you ever rode it, and I can’t imagine you pedaling along with your long black duster flapping behind you in the breeze. You said you were enjoying it, though. That made me feel better. Thank you for treating me with dignity and generosity in equal measure. 

So your body is gone, but your light is still with me, inspiring me with everything you accomplished while you were here and were still pushing to do, ever so intrepid. Thank you for your friendship and your part in making me a better version of myself, thank you for weaving me into your life and letting me weave you indelibly into mine. 

Love you, Klute,

-J

In memory of my grandmother, Sylvia Rebie Redfield (December 14, 1925 - July 28, 2021)

My mother's mother, Sylvia Redfield, great-grandmother to my daughter, mother of 7, grandmother to 14, great-grandmother to 15, died just before 8 a.m., Montana Time July 28, 2021, at a hospital in Glasgow, Mont., at age 95.

Photo by Jennifer Ray Photography

My mother Sylvia Redfield Elliott called me from the hospital.

She was diagnosed with cancer this spring, which is why I and mom took Athena Zelda Nebula Skye Sylvia Diana Fox Graham to Montana in June, so she could meet her namesake.

Grandma Sylvia told me four things when we embraced for the last time:

1. "I'm happy you came" 
2. "I wish I had gotten to know Laura better" (she only met my wife once at Christmas in 2017 and once when when we went to pick up a table, when she was still pregnant.)
3. "I'm happy I got to meet Athena" 
4. "Take care of that little girl"

She also said not to look at her because if she saw how I was crying, she would start crying too. 

Athena only has good memories of Montana, the wide open spaces, the dogs, and great-grandma. 

She was funny, always laughing when she told stories. 

She is the wife of the late Frank "Buster" Redfield aka "Papa" from my poem, "We Call Him Papa". 

They met at the USO. 

She never gave her number to anyone, but on her last day volunteering there, and my grandfather's first day visiting (he was a veteran of both the US Navy and the US Army, which is a story in itself), she gave him hers, figuring nothing would come of it. 

Athena met Sylvia for the first time in June and helped make wedding mints.

He called so many times to ask her out the next day, she said, that her sister just told him to come over in person. They married Dec. 6, 1947.

Frank and Sylvia on their wedding day

Grandma shows my mom the wedding dress in June.

Frank and Sylvia with their first of seven children, Georgia.

She loved literature and poetry, her favorite poet being Langston Hughes, which she said no one would expect given that she was a "little white girl growing up in the segregated South," but she said his work spoke to her. She gave me her hand-annotated "The Selected Poems of Langston Hughes," which she had re-read many times (she had bookmarks at "Sunday Morning Prophesy" "Freedom Train" and "I, Too"). This was a handwritten Hughes poem in the book:

She had an English degree, like me, from Bucknell University. She liked reading my poems and watching me perform slam poetry. 

Over the years she sent me dozens of books on all sorts of topics and children's books for Athena.

The small town of Opheim, Mont., will be dedicating its library in her name.

Like Athena, she loved puddles.

May you never have to explain to a 3-year-old why you're crying.

Sylvia Rebie Redfield

December 14, 1925 - July 28, 2021

Sylvia Rebie Redfield was born to Rebie Sylvia (McElwee) and Frank (Schleif) Slife on December 14, 1925 in Atlanta, Georgia. She passed away July 28, 2021 at the age of 95, in Glasgow, Montana.

She grew up in Atlanta and graduated from Sylvan Girls High School. 

She graduated from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania with a major in history and political science and a minor in English. 

She had always wanted to be a teacher and taught at a country school in Norcross, Georgia.

While volunteering at a USO she met Frank Redfield, Jr. who was in the Army at the time. 

They dated while she was finishing college and were married December 6, 1947.

He moved the city girl to the country in 1948, and their first child was born in Glasgow in 1949. 

Later in 1949 they moved back to Atlanta where Frank was a policeman and Sylvia was a housewife — adding four more children to the family. 

In 1956, they made the permanent move back to Opheim to run the family farm. 

They eventually added two more children.

In 1987, Frank and Sylvia became snowbirds, spending half the year in Chandler, Arizona. 

Grandma and her three sons, Myron, Les and Alan, from left.

While there, Sylvia volunteered at a school and a hospital in the Patient Pride program and in the pharmacy where they loved her organizational skills. 

Sylvia moved back to Montana permanently in 2018 when her health started to decline, first living with her daughter, Lisa, and then with her son, Myron and Alice Redfield who were excellent caregivers.

Sylvia touched the lives of hundreds of children through her leadership in 4-H, Sunday school, Bible school, story hour, and as the favorite substitute teacher at Opheim School for many years. 

She was an excellent cook and shared not only with her family, but also with friends, relatives, neighbors and lonely GIs from the Glasgow Air Force Base (home of the 476th Fighter Group, 4141st Strategic Wing, 326th Bombardment Squadron and 91st Bombardment Wing from 1957-1976) and Opheim Air Force Station (home of the 779th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron from 1951-1979).

Sylvia was a life-long learner and loved books. She always had a book in her hand or by her side and was often reading two or three books at a time. 

She kept a record of the books she read and that total reached over 2,500 books. 

Grandma with my aunts Lisa Theiven and Alice Redfield, and uncles Myron Redfield and Alan Redfield on the floor of the Montana House of Representatives. Alan served two terms as the District 59 representative from 2013 to 2021. Behind them is the 1912 Charles M. Russell painting "Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians at Ross' Hole." Note the snarling dog above the speaker's chair - Russell hated the speaker of the house at the time, so he painted the dog to growl at him.

She volunteered at the community library and worked in the school library and had her own library at home. 

She donated books to the Opheim School library as memorials for community members who had passed away and has donated around 250 books. 

She was thrilled to have the library dedicated to her memory.

She was a woman of faith and a Bible scholar and was very active in the United Methodist Church including being a lay pastor. 

She was also a member of Eastern Star, WIFE, United Methodist Women and the American Legion Auxiliary.

She loved life and always had a smile or an encouraging word. 

She loved babies, music, dancing, poetry and a good joke.

She was preceded in death in 2004 by her husband of almost 57 years, Frank; granddaughter Erin Sheer; infant grandson, Lane Redfield; as well as her parents; sister, Mary Evans and brother, Bil Slife.

Grandma's coffin made by my uncle, Alan Redfield, engraved cross made by my cousin, Logan Redfield.

The cross being prepared by my cousin Logan

Survivors include her seven children: Georgia (Hank) Sheer, Lynn (Al) Cherry, Alan (Laurie) Redfield, Les (Lisa) Redfield, Sylvia Elliott, Myron (Alice) Redfield and Lisa (Marty) Thievin; 13 grandchildren [Jason, Zack, Jodie, Katie, Chase, Haylee, Tatum, Christopher Fox, Nicholas, J.T., Ryan, Logan and Cole]; 15 great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews.

The library in Opheim, Montana, has been renamed in honor of my late grandmother, Sylvia Redfield, a lifelong bibliophile and one of the most well-read people I've ever known.