Poetry in Arizona

I spent about an hour on the phone with Christopher Lane discussing poetry and poetry politics. He's of the same mind that there is a deep division between Phoenix-based poetry scene and exo-Phoenix regions of Southern and Northern Arizona. This has been evident over the past few years as the Northern Arizona scene has grown from a monthly slam in Flagstaff run by a pack of exiles from Phoenix, Southern California, Las Vegas, Seattle, and Texas into strong local poetry movements in Flagstaff and Prescott and smaller ones in Sedona and around Arcosanti.

Other scenes I have visited all have dashes of their local color, politics, and drama, but there is a unique isolationist exclusivity in the Phoenix scene. It's pervasive in a lot of other mediums of art as far as I can tell, but poetry is obviously my concern.

Still, after all this time, Northern Arizona still seems more embracing than Phoenix. After slams and events in Flagstaff, almost without exception, poets and fans would congregate at one cheap restaurant or another and not discuss poetry, but just hang out. The same can not be said for Phoenix, with few exception.

Northern Arizona has a sense of community about it that Phoenix hasn't contained for me. There, I felt like a real contributing member of a group, but Phoenix is too big, too spread out, too disconnected for the same sensation. Despite never having lived there, I have felt more artistically connected to Sedona and Prescott and even Arcosanti than Phoenix and it's suburbs. Perhaps its the general facelessness of the city itself, or the permanently transient population, but I still feel like a permanent exile here. Even though I've spent 2/3 of my almost 3 years of slam in Phoenix, I'm still "Christopher Fox Graham from Flagstaff". I don't care about the title, but there is a mindset behind it.

Part of it is benefit; I like being on the fringes sometimes, but even when I want to be in a group or community, it feels like it's forced. Events, meetings, and gatherings down here quite honestly feel false or half-assembled, or are put together last minute, or the rules change at the last minute, and not everyone shows up, leaders included. Again, I'm sure part of that is the general layout of the city and the sheer size of it. But bottom line, in Prescott and Flagstaff, when an event goes down, everyone shows. That's very reassuring when trying to build a community.

I guess it comes down to the fact that if one missed an event or a gathering, one truly felt missed. I've never felt missed in Phoenix.

I'm not asking for a ego-boosting rock-star worship; who gives a fuck? I hate that shit anyway, it makes me uncomfortable when some audience member compliments my work, then stands there. I never know what to say. If you like it, applaud, buy a book (if I'm selling one), come to the next event, and go home and write something, dammit.

There should be no special treatment; just fair treatment.

There's a different mood in Northern Arizona too. A certain independence, even from the past or other factors. Last time Josh Fleming and I slammed in Prescott and Host and Slam Master Dan Seaman was announcing future events, he mentioned Keith Breucker and David Escobedo as members of Save the Male, but not Josh and I to avoid influencing the judges. I was told that Danny Solis came to the Arcosanti Slam hoping to be on Brandy Lintecum's Phoenix team but Dan Seaman denied him because Danny Solis wasn't from Arizona. It wasn't malicious; it was the rules. He invited him to calibrate but not compete. As long as I've known him, Dan Seaman has always supported the arts but both stuck to his guns and his rules. Danny Solis may be good and have been an "Old Guard" Slammer but he wasn't from Arizona, end of story, that's the rule. Other SlamMasters in Arizona haven't been as fair to their own rules nor as unbiased, most notably Brandy Lintecum and to a point Nick Fox. As such, I have a deep respect for Dan Seaman. Likewise, Christopher Lane doesn't offer any special treatment of the poets at his slams.

Northern Arizonan audiences, poets included, also seemed happy to have poets read. There's a desire to swallow the out-of-towners, whether touring or not, that Phoenix doesn't have.

Most unsettling is that there seems to be an underlying contempt for exo-Phoenix art scenes on both a scene-wide and individual level, as though Northern Arizona and Tucson is the boonies when them local-yokels fuck cousins, don't bathe, and write poetry on the side. But Phoenix isn't Rome and I've seen some great work come those scenes. Maybe it's the youth of their scenes that makes them so inclusive. I don't see any of that "Old Guard" mentality up north that I seen in Phoenix. Northern Arizona poets also see slam as more of a game. I always do. But at slams in Prescott and Flagstaff, I've never had to plan a strategy; winning didn't really matter. You were just happy to have a captive audience. But in Phoenix and Mesa (or Sedona and Arcosanti wherein Phoenix poets were included) there's a desire to win that outweighs the game. Slam is verbal chess, not WWII. It's a joke and a crapshoot. In a sport where we pick 5 random people who've never seen spoken word before, how can anyone take a slam seriously?

I think it's more of a challenge to write something well and perform it well and have a good time doing it. I like the brutality of a tight cutthroat bout, but it's nice to read at a slam and have other poets critique or compliment someone's work as though it's admirable. It just feels good to have an audience, especially peers, pay attention to one's work.

Perhaps its the legacy of Eirean Bradley still in the veins or something deeper. Who knows?

But when someone asks what scene I hail from, I don't say Mesa or Phoenix or even Tempe. Usually, I just say "Arizona" because none of the other titles fit.

Go figure.

Sedona All-Star Slam II review

Prologue

I drove to Sedona on Friday with my friend Michael Kukuruga and his girl, Nikki. If I had a Tyler Durdan, Kuk would be he. We can say more without saying a word and we've been through a lot of similar experiences. We both know what it's like to sleep in Tempe Jail, for instance.

We drove up in Nikki's car while I read "Fast Food Nation" and Kuk read my chapbook "I've Seen You Naked". We rolled into town around 13:00, got something to eat from the organic market next to the Canyon Moon Theater and then hit the kitchy part of Sedona to molest statues and offend tourists. After parking illegally, then sneaking through a hotel lobby to avoid getting towed, we hit the street.

America, I love you, you capitalist whore

If you have to debate whether or not to shoplift in every store, does that make you a bad person? I'm talking every store.

Kuk and I wandered from store to store, place to place, making small talk with the locals and the tourists while Nikki followed with a camera in hand. Among other things, Kuk dry-humped a bronze statue and made out with a cigar-store Indian. We played a Kuk'd eye game that everyone wants to play but none have defined, till now. Pass by that girl you've been checking out, slowly. Then glance at her. (We all do that glancing thing wherein we look a someone but we don't want them to think we're looking, so we look around and "happen" to see someone. Milk it.) Wait until she "glances" at you, then catch her with a "gotcha" or "I won", then move on.

Main Event

We met the poets at the Red Planet then headed to the venue. They included from Las Vegas/Flagstaff Andy "War" Hall, from Sedona: Jarrod Karimi and Rebekah Crisp, from Flagstaff: Logan Phillips, Dom Flemons, Suzy La Follette, and SlamMaster John R Kofonow, from Mesa: Tony Damico, Corbet Dean, Julie Ann Elefante, Taneka Stotts, and Jonathan Standifird, from Albuquerque, SlamMaster Danny Solis and Kenn Rodriguez, and from Tempe, Christopher Fox Graham. Our Host was my good friend Christopher Lane. Also up but not competing was Halcyone whom Kuk spent all of dinner hitting on in some crazed attempt at a threesome. Ah Kuk, sigh.

Then the battle began. It was harsh for Julie Elefante who had to lead the first round. Despite an over the top performance that landed him sprawled out on the ground, Dom Flemons didn't make it to round two. Rebekah Crisp, I think, had no idea what to expect and Jarrod Karimi pulled a wrong piece at the wrong time. He made it as the dark horse alternate for Flagstaff in 2002 doing freestyle but picked a poem that was just too short for this bout. He has a poem "She is a Cactus Flower" that is brilliant and would been gold. Little John R Kofonow had the most inventive poem of the night, about the tortoise and the hare, but it was too unrehearsed and still on page. It was good to hear him read again, and do so happily. I still regret the way he felt in Vegas in 2002 when the relatively unresponsive crowd at the Cafe Roma dampened his spirits. I still think he's a great kid. Danny Solis also got knocked out early. "Fat Man" was too subdued for a first round poem and he went too early in the round. Jonathon Standifird did a great piece, but the audience for some reason was not receptive. Their loss.

Suzy La Follette's poem for Christopher Lane's fiance Akasha, was brilliant and I was praying to follow and target her (Suzy) with "She Needs it Bad", but I was wary after the tongue-lashing I got from last time. But Kenn Rodriguez followed her. I had a number of poems prepped for the first round but Logan Phillips's Night Poem left me without a real clue of what to do and I selected my first poem while at the mic. Andy Hall is insane and I love him. Round two left nine poets. Brief Intermission.

That being said, ROUND TWO: EVERYBODY DIES (I had to keep from laughing when I thought that on stage). Have a someone you want to kill? Do it in Round Two. All in all, I think we had a five-year-old, a five-year-old's mother, a high-school friend, and someone's father bite the dust in round two. Even Andy Hall brought a downer. Thank GOD for Tony D. I think we all moved the audience and even I was moved by some of the performances by the other poets, but from a cynical, critical point of view.... The Klute's piece about killing imaginary friends for the sake of slam would have gone over well, despite the true sincerity of all the poets.

Round Three left just six. Suzy La Follette and Tony D Score 30s. In the end deciding between three pieces, I pulled "Coming Home" and scored a 29.9. This was apart of the cosmic reason from two posts ago.... I managed to sink the intensity and the humor into one of the best performances I think I've ever done of that piece. Rounding the night was Suzy La Follette, Corbet Dean, and Christopher Fox Graham in 1st, 2nd, & 3rd respectively.

The whole night was a beautiful crapshoot, and I remember leaning over to John R Kofonow as the wave of 9.0+ score took over in round two. The whole night was a bit high as the difference between Suzy La Follette and myself was only 0.5. With lower scores throughout the night, things would have fared differently.

Epilogue

On the long drive home, Nikki slept in the back seat. She had originally planned on coming to Sedona to interview for a job at a camp after a brief stint in Florence, Italy this summer. The Slam was just a happy diversion after the interview. She scored the job.

Kuk and I talked strategy and I swear, it was like the kid had been watching slam for years, rather than this being his first slam. An hour of debate and analysis with someone who is as skilled at the verbal chess as I am. I miss having a true game-player in slam. Someone who sees the whole thing like one big fencing bout. I hadn't felt that engaged about tactics since Nationals. Why doesn't he write?

By the way, I now have internet access at home. Yay me.

Y'all Know What It's About

I feel great about the Slam off last night. I did perhaps the best renditions of three poems I really feel are strong, solid pieces.

Round One Manifesto of an Addict
I had thought about doing English Major, because humor goes over well at Essenza, but general slam-offs that I've seen, humor takes a back seat to serious poems. Going so early in the round, after David Tabor's humor piece got low scores, I figured it was a lock. If I had seen how the night was going to turn out, I might have save it for a later round and done English Major, for a quick high score. Bottomline, Manifesto of an Addict was an top-notch performance, but bad strategy.
I hadn't done the piece since tour and one fluke drunk slam at Essenza in December. I don't think I can break it out in a hard-core competition again because it doesn't soun right as a solo poem.

Round Two He Needs it Bad
Target: Corbet Dean. Maybe a bad idea (especially if I knew his sister and mother were in the audience). I didn't want to early again for the rest of the slam, yet there I was first in round two. Good performance, great laughs, but the rule of score creep levels all. If Corbet and I carpool to Sedona next week for the slam, I may not make it back....

Round Three This Poem Has a Secret Title (sic)
I had a toss up between English Major, Bookstore Dreams and , This Poem Has a Secret Title. In the end, I wanted to do the poem I had always wanted to read in Arizona. I wrote this poem in downtown Manhattan the night I and my Save the Male Tour featured in the Nuyorican's Poet Cafe, June 21st 2002. It felt great to read it and get it off my chest, and I thought the beauty of it outweighed any score, high or low. By that point, 4th was a distant goal, only if Regina and Jon Standifird got time penalties and I were to get an unbelievably high score. Bottomline: my best piece of the night and the one I felt most proud of. It's deeply personal, with good reason, and the real title and inspiration is known by only a select few....

SIDELINE COMMENTARY
Round One
Score Creep is mother-fucker. David Tabor and Julie Elefante took the brunt of it. I got a bad piece too, and the real scores didn't start flying until Regina Blakely read.

Round Two
theklute was genius. I love that anti-slam slam poem. I hope he does it a Nationals, hopefully, in the early rounds to pre-empt and drop-kick the other teams.
David Tabor got raped on scores.

Round Three
The only slot really up for grabs was 4th. Alternate was also eligible, but that fourth slot was the only target for the 5 of us who weren't already assured. I think Regina Blakely rightly snagged it because she brought out a crowd-pleaser. No foul. The four of us who did not make the cut read what we felt and did an kick-ass, true-to-heart reading.

Overall
#1 One of the single best slams I've seen outside of a National team bout. Maybe Flagstaff 2001 was better, despite the venue, a slam I saw on tour at the Cantab where all 20+ poets were spectacular. I guess, with some reservation, that the point system does work.

#2 Cutting to 8 after round two was a bad, bad, bad idea. Everyone who slammed last night deserved to read three times, even if they had no shot at the team after round two. Everyone worked on three poems and being unable to read them was a harsh, bad idea. I disagree strongly with the decision to cut. This isn't Urbana, nor is it Boston. We read because we love to, not because we're cutthroat about points. There were no tears last night (except during poems) and no screaming and yelling afterwards. There was good blood among us all so that decision, again, was a serious flaw to the fairness of the sport. [Off my soapbox and stand to the left].

#3 Any one of the 11 of us deserved to be on that team. What it came down to was slot-pulls, the ever-permanent crap-shoot that are judges, and a few shitty scores.

#4 There is a cosmic reason I didn't make the team. Other forces were at work. Call me a crazy Pisces, but I all I know is what I know, if you know what I mean.

#5 Yay, Slam. You cruel, beautiful bitch, you. It's the only chess match artists have.

Gentle Prose Eyes

I'm been writing prose stories of my autobiography for the last three days. This is one of the products. Maybe more to come.





This physical details of this story are true, though the interpretation is entirely my own. The names have been changed to protect the guilty. The very, very guitly. Enjoy.

Rupert

Rupert always liked shocking 'mundanes,' members of that vast majority of people who sit home at night, every night, laughing it up over the scripted behavior of sitcoms. There was a time, we're told through textbooks of mosaics and vases of naked athletes, when actors were on par with beggars and con men, thought no higher than the urban campers that migrate through downtown Tempe by night and curl up on benches at the park just outside my flat, ogling the young Spanish mothers. But the ancient class of pretenders have become celebrities, usurping the role once held in our grandmother cultures by orators, warriors, politicians, and the beleaguered breed of poets. Rupert would not have considered himself any of these things. He once referred to himself as a "shockster," tagged with a chuckle, once when we split a bottle of wine on the roof of the Matthews Center. He chucked the bottle into orbit after we downed it, bursting like a star of broken glass on Cady Mall.

If he had more forethought, I would have called him a performance artist. Without his conversation, I would have debated his sanity. If he ever wrote his brain into a page, I would have described him as a writer of prophecies.

Unfortunately, Rupert was impulsive and hated writing. His life was built on spoken words and he could bullshit his way out of anything and often did. He once scored a one-night stand with a business sophomore after telling her she had nice teeth. He blasted epithets in the theater, not at the screen, but at other moviegoers, shouted across Mill Avenue to friends and foes alike, and was politely asked to leave various establishments under threat of calling the police. To know Rupert was to know an anarchist who hated anarchists, but wanted to throw a bit of chaos in the comfortable life of soccer marms and white-collar suburban middle-managers whose life goal was owning an SUV with 1.2% APR.

I can't remember how I met Rupert. Most of the players in my life slide up from the sides while I'm watching protagonist and heroine bicker center-stage. Pause. Sideline character becomes supporting actor, epigrammatic lines emerge into the venue, soaking into the brains of watchers, and the audience asks, "where did he come from?"

Rupert always stole his scenes.

Too much coffee in our systems while he paid the check. He always had money it seemed. Just enough cash to survive, I thought, but he always had a bill in the beat-up wallet I'm sure he lifted from some thrift store, more than likely with slight of hand than with a receipt. On our treks, we never stopped at a bank, and he job was fuzzy something or other, so I knew he was a dealer; coupled with the number of strangers that would stop him in bars or on the street to say hello.

Start parenthesis. Here I insert the fable of the stork among crows for those of you with a lofty moral compass and no dangerlove. I never dealt in any organized sense, but materials illegal fell my way from time to time, the floorscore of my acquaintances as it were, and I passed on the substances I wasn't into with a marginal profit.

Rupert though, always had a story about getting roughed up for one reason or another, and he could read tags, gang signs, and knew what areas of town to not head into looking for trouble. I was far more naive so he kept an eye out for me. End parenthesis

Too much coffee and he had finished more than a pack of Marlboroughs. I'm not one for cigarettes and can barely tell the difference between a filter and the other end; being the heir to a registered nurse can do that to a boy. The waitress had a smooth butt and a nice smile in a dull midwestern sense. One of those flat states that ends in a vowel that no one remembers driving through, despite gas station receipts proving otherwise. Rupert always overtipped for good service or a pretty face; he knew a serious waitress, like a poet, could make a ten dollars stretch a week.

The water glasses were just chunks of ice now, and Rupert and I sucked the sweat off the cubes like ants milking aphids.

"Wanna pick a fight?"

The room is half-packed. In a booth to the left are three kids, younger or older than us by a few months, suburban black kids in sweaters and baggy jeans cleaned and pressed by mothers or girlfriends or young wives, and they're not up for a friendly tussle with strangers. To the right is a family of four, Homer in a maroon polo, digital watch ticking down the seconds to his inevitable heart attack, Marge in her Friday "we're going out honey" blouse. Bart and Lisa pick off the remnants of the children's menu burgers with cute names aimed at the youngest youth market. College couples abound elsewhere in pairs or quads, but I'm not up for dropping soft-skinned science majors desperately trying to score subtlety with their newest virgin targets, or roughing up goofball boyfriends in front of girlfriends far too good and fine for them, but doomed to imitate the cartoon breeders to our right.

"Sure," I quietly say, thinking we'll head outside and spill drinks on thick-necked frat boys sauced on overpriced Long Islands.

Keep in mind, dear reader, that I am by no means a warrior, nor is Rupert, and I only fight back in self-defense. Rupert, conversely, saw confrontation as means to an end, if only that end is to pass the time with some shared excitement. There was no humor in a knockdown, drag-out fight where one party incurs a debt with their health insurance behemoth. It was always about the subtlety of the confrontation, the maneuvering, the drama. It was a chess game, Rupert said, to agitate a normal person into throwing the first punch, then getting the fuck out before the law arrived to ruin the experiment.

Rupert is instantly standing, his chair tumbling backward behind him toward the empty table behind us. Legs spring and he is suddenly airborne and our table is the deck of an aircraft carrier. He skids across it at full speed, wheels missing the non-existent tow cable and the ice cubes become frozen projectiles tumbling across the floor. His hands plant on my shoulders, taking me over in the chair to the floor. My torso topples back, my head does not, but locks halfway to floor, so my skull does not dribble across the court.

I distinctly remember hearing the one black kid facing us shout, "shit!" as I tumbled.

Rupert's knee is planted on my chest, fists wailing. He has a ten-year-olds smile, not at the thrill of assault, but the reaction of the crowd. Homer is dumbstruck; he's only seen shit like this on every single one of his 500 channels except PBS. Now in reality, he's unsure whether this is scripted or sports. Marge repeats the same two-word prayer over and over to her deity, while Bart and Lisa get to see R-rated violence for free.

Rupert's dive broke a glass he never did pay for.

Fists flying, his into me, mine into him, but he's pulling punches. (No permanent damage kiddo, not that pretty face). I'm returning body blows but have no momentum due to the floor. I block whatever else I can. The black kids have half-stood, unsure of the proper moment to intervene in what does not seem to be their affair. College couples have all turned their attention away from banal small talk and sexual pursuits to watch Rupert (apparently) beat the living daylights out of a me, pinned to the floor.

Later, Marge would be heard to remark: they seemed like two nice, quiet young gentlemen, before the recent unpleasantness.

Rupert lands an excellent shot across my jaw, jerking my face to the right into wet carpet. I start laughing uncontrollably, more out of shock than design; perhaps some long repressed survival tactic to distract opponents in a tense situation.

Rupert begins laughing too and his punches fall softer until they halt altogether.

By now, management and the cook staff have been alerted by the commotion and emerge into the dining room , appraising the scene. One of the black kids has emerged from the booth. Two college kids have split from their dates in moral outrage and to demonstrate their virility. Hormones flow. Adrenaline. Testosterone. Estrogen.

Rupert backs off me, grabbing me up by the arm in a single fluid motion. I stabilize. I glance at Bart, letting him see that the wounded hero is still alive after the commercial break, despite the cliffhanger postulated minutes before.

Rupert faces the stunned crowd, even more stunned that the scene ended so abruptly. He bows slightly, and shouts, "thank you, you've been great."

Afterwards, I informed him that when I told the story years later, I would remember him saying something humorous and dramatic. In reality, though, after he pulled me up, he shouted something far more lowbrow, like "fuck", or "run", or "now" and he bolted, halfhazardly dragging me with him, toward the waiting area.

Inbound customers hover like Vietnamese Hueys for the next hostess in the foyer as Rupert, then I, dash past. Rupert halts just long enough to grab a handful of peppermints from a basket on the hostess stand. Some fell out on the way, skidding across tile like carnival hockey pucks.

He slams shoulder-first through two doors and I followed, laughing hysterically the entire way.

We hauled toward Rupert's pickup. He took the helm, I leapt into the bed and we disappeared into the night, while bruises formed like medals in our skin.

Spring Project Poem # 43

break down the sentences between us
twist the syntax like an orange rind
and swallow the juice
dribble vowels down your chin
lick the adverbs off your fingertips
serve prepositional phrases with sugar
to soften the tartness

find reasons to make desserts
nouns and cherry pie
strawberry adjective cake
punctuation chip cookies leave question marks
on your teeth
if eaten too soon after baking
but a nice subjective clause meringue
tops any pastry nicely

break down the sentences between us
leave your belly bloated and warm
press my ear to your navel
the digesting characters
funnel echoed words
back into my ears
like a seashell

What am I worth?

I am worth $2,293,214.00 US Dollars
and with today's current exchange rate converts into:
3,362.48 Platinum Ounces
6,511.55 Gold Ounces
9,655.64 Palladium Ounces
509,602.90 Silver Ounces
1,419,804.81 United Kingdom Pounds
1,680,465.77 International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights
2,139,048.34 Euros
3,503,510.23 Canadian Dollars
4,185,790.32 Deutsche Marks (now Euros)
8,262,449.54 Brazilian Reals
8,600,011.14 Saudi Arabian Riyals
8,711,919.99 Malaysian Ringgits
11,151,899.68 Israeli New Shekels
14,038,533.31 French Francs (now Euros)
17,885,879.19 Hong Kong Dollars
18,980,473.64 Chinese Yuan Renminbi
19,239,030.87 South African Rand
25,137,968.82 Mexican Pesos
72,534,358.82 Russian Rubles
98,631,134.14 Thai Baht
109,637,920.94 Indian Rupees
278,135,230.52 Japanese Yen
2,736,980,850.12 South Korean Won
3,664,555,972.00 Venezuelan Bolivares
4,146,133,645.47 Italian Lire (now Euros)
11,167,952,180.00 Zambian Kwacha
6 bars, 18 strips, and 63 slips of Gold-Pressed Latinum

but you can have me
with one deep kiss
that can bend my doubts over backward,
write your tongue onto my endoplasmic reticulum highways,
and turn my spine into mushy oatmeal.

My Five of Five

Five things that 2002 taught me:
1. I can survive for 4 months on $300. Pretty well in fact.
2. My poetry doesn't suck. I am actually good at what I love to do.
3. By selling it all, choosing homelessness, and going on tour, I've done more at my young age to follow my heart than most people will do in their entire life. I'm braver than I thought I was.
4. I have to make my own destiny. Fate doesn't exist.
5. Life sucks without a car.

Five personally significant events of 2002:
1. Disowning my father. This was his second chance to be my dad in any way and it went worse than the first. Now I know how not to treat my children.
2. Finally telling Daniela to put up or shut up. She's been a cock-tease and a love-vampire for the last three years and I let her use me because I'm a coward. But I've finally stood up. I'm almost certain I've lost her but I'm free.
3. Getting arrested. It was stupid, I was guilty beyond doubt, and I don't want to commit the same crime ever again.
4. The Save the Male Poetry Tour. 39 shows, 26 states, four men, three months, two countries, and one van. Wow, what a ride.
5. Leaving Flagstaff. It's a good place if you can stand small towns and intrusive personalities, but I'm a city boy and need the diversity of 4 million people. I'd rather be a little fish in a big pond than a big fish in a soup.

Five things I want to do in 2003:
1. Make a National Slam Team and do the thing in Chicago.
2. Be satisfied with my poetry. The kind of poetry that isn't just selfless mental masturbation.
3. Have a meaningful relationship with someone who isn't 18, or in high school, or recently divorced, or my boss. A punk rock art chick who'll break me.
4. Make enough money to buy a car, get a computer, and start publishing the chapbooks of poets across the country.
5. Plan my next national poetry tour.

Five things I don't want to do in 2003:
1. Procrastinate.
2. Let fear or fear of loneliness paralyze my better judgment.
3. Settle.
4. Write crap poetry and try to pass it off as art.
5. Blame writer's block.

Five (groups of) people who I'd like to know better in 2003:
1. My three step sisters, Jessica 19, Danielle 17, and Kristina 11. Jessica got engaged over the weekend, Danielle has a secret artistic side I think I could coax out of her shell, and Kristina is more like me now than anyone else I know.
2. Corbet Dean. He's been the most supportive of all the poets I know, but I don't really know him like I should. He could also help me improve my performance.
3. Klute. He and I could have one of the great friendships that art scholars will debate for decades.
4. Trish JusTrish. I like her and her art more and more I hear it.
5. Scott Creney and Mathew Moon, the two Guerrilla poets from Boston moving to Prescott this month.

What is Christopher Fox Graham about?

Christopher Fox Graham is about to reassure us
Christopher Fox Graham is pushing the case
Christopher Fox Graham is going on
Christopher Fox Graham is more plentiful
Christopher Fox Graham is in the ratings hunt
Christopher Fox Graham is trying to leave the door open for those who have yet to come through it
Christopher Fox Graham is saying 'is'
Christopher Fox Graham is in the henhouse
Christopher Fox Graham is Ralph Stricker
Christopher Fox Graham is shutting down
Christopher Fox Graham is running
Christopher Fox Graham is back at camp in a new way
Christopher Fox Graham is pledged to continue
Christopher Fox Graham is good
Christopher Fox Graham is brown and red
Christopher Fox Graham is now available as a toolkit
Christopher Fox Graham is trapped by the tentacles of power
Christopher Fox Graham is a sly teacher to keep kid's attention
Christopher Fox Graham is hungry
Christopher Fox Graham is over eight thousand days old
Christopher Fox Graham is named employee of the month for march
Christopher Fox Graham is not a useless piece of trash
Christopher Fox Graham is based on TV
Christopher Fox Graham is put into practice by the government of Suriname
Christopher Fox Graham is one of Staten Island area's most respected fishing advocates
Christopher Fox Graham is in the open
Christopher Fox Graham is back
Christopher Fox Graham is a sly fox
Christopher Fox Graham is seen in this file photo
Christopher Fox Graham is Charlena Marie Wilson
Christopher Fox Graham is committed to land protection
Christopher Fox Graham is not on the run
Christopher Fox Graham is elvis
Christopher Fox Graham is the newest Lifetime Channel member
Christopher Fox Graham is trying to cancel Futurama
Christopher Fox Graham is better than MTV
Christopher Fox Graham is a remarkable glider
Christopher Fox Graham is a stream
Christopher Fox Graham is a director
Christopher Fox Graham is Canadian
Christopher Fox Graham is about to reassure us that Bush can scold wall street with a straight face
Christopher Fox Graham is right
Christopher Fox Graham is doing it
Christopher Fox Graham is full of crap, and lots of it
Christopher Fox Graham is IS
Christopher Fox Graham is frying many fish
Christopher Fox Graham is our logo
Christopher Fox Graham is pushing the case with his popularity high
Christopher Fox Graham is staying home
Christopher Fox Graham is indecent
Christopher Fox Graham is maxine
Christopher Fox Graham is symbiosis
Christopher Fox Graham is in the ratings hunt
Christopher Fox Graham is off base
Christopher Fox Graham is trying to leave the door open for those who have threatened our delegates
Christopher Fox Graham is shutting down websites
Christopher Fox Graham is pledged to continue Mexico's subordination to us
Christopher Fox Graham is a good randy playboy trick
Christopher Fox Graham is a new stretch of 11th street opened by the city of Springfield
Christopher Fox Graham is common in most of northern North America
Christopher Fox Graham is better than CNN
Christopher Fox Graham is this
Christopher Fox Graham is that
Christopher Fox Graham is a saying about kings
Christopher Fox Graham is found in the treeless tundra extending through the arctic regions of Eurasia
Christopher Fox Graham is put into practice by the publisher
Christopher Fox Graham is lowest profile standard unit available for real time clock applications
Christopher Fox Graham is taking from my *$#%@!
Christopher Fox Graham is a Southern writer who understands heat
Christopher Fox Graham is hunted by hounds following the line of scent
Christopher Fox Graham is great
Christopher Fox Graham is smaller and skinnier than the red Christopher Fox Graham
Christopher Fox Graham is one of two fox species found in the southern mountains
Christopher Fox Graham is one of the most common mammals in Ireland
Christopher Fox Graham is suffering from rabies as well as other fox species
Christopher Fox Graham is the state
Christopher Fox Graham is solitary
Christopher Fox Graham is a professor of industrial engineering with cross appointments in the department of computer science and faculty of management science at the University of Michigan
Christopher Fox Graham is guarding the chicken
Christopher Fox Graham is a pest and his population needs to be controlled
Christopher Fox Graham is singing again
Christopher Fox Graham said "I joined because Iowa was one of the first states to start recycling mandatory returnables"
Christopher Fox Graham is at the top of it's food chain and has never naturally been hunted
Christopher Fox Graham is getting a bum rap
Christopher Fox Graham is tops for redbird gymnastics on senior night
Christopher Fox Graham is Christ
Christopher Fox Graham is called a reynard
Christopher Fox Graham is an exciting glider
Christopher Fox Graham is coming
Christopher Fox Graham is a lot better that MTV
Christopher Fox Graham is one of the most widely distributed carnivores in the lower 48 states
Christopher Fox Graham is casting single men and women for a new reality show
Christopher Fox Graham is making a mistake
Christopher Fox Graham is like to fly
Christopher Fox Graham is 'lucky' in love
Christopher Fox Graham is a C++ based toolkit for developing graphical user interfaces easily and effectively
Christopher Fox Graham is spotted
Christopher Fox Graham is a spiritual theologian who has been an ordained priest since 1967
Christopher Fox Graham is a dual national
Christopher Fox Graham is a large fruit bat weighing 400 ounces
Christopher Fox Graham is found in the far north
Christopher Fox Graham is on the town
Christopher Fox Graham is evil
Christopher Fox Graham is located on the southwest corner of Oak Park Avenue and Lake Street in the Scoville Square office building
Christopher Fox Graham is all that AND a bag of chips