Sedona Poetry Slam on Feb. 3 will select three poets for the All-Arizona Championship Poetry Slam

Performance poets will compete for the third time this season, bringing high-energy, competitive spoken word to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 3.

B-Jam

The top three poets will be representing Sedona at the All-Arizona Championship Poetry Slam that will be held in the town of Maricopa on March 9.

Lydia Gates

A poetry slam is like a series of high-energy, three-minute one-person plays, judged by the audience. Anyone can sign up to compete in the slam for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize. 

R.J. Walker, a featured poet from St. Lake City, performed Jan. 13.

To compete in the slam, poets will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted. The poets are judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam.

Sondraya Bradley

Slam poetry is an art form that allows written page poets to share their work alongside theatrical performers, hip-hop artists and lyricists. Poets come from as far away as Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, competing against adult poets from Sedona and Cottonwood, college poets from Northern Arizona University and youth poets from Sedona Red Rock High School. 

Josh Wiss

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. 

Raina Jane

All poets get three minutes per round to entertain and inspire the audience with their creativity.

The Mary D. Fisher Theatre is located at 2030 W. SR 89A, Suite A-3, in West Sedona. Tickets are $12. For tickets, call 282-1177 or visit SedonaFilmFestival.org.

Kate Martin

The next poetry slam of the season will be held on Saturdays, March 9; April 13, featuring Briana Grace Hammerstrom of Portland. Ore., by way of Flagstaff, May 11 and finally on June 8.

Roger Blakiston

The prize money is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporters Jeanne and Jim Freeland.

Cylie Lawrence

Email foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up early to compete or by the Friday before the slam or at the door the day of the slam. Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive. 

Damien Matthews

For more information, visit sedonafilmfestival.com or foxthepoet.blogspot.com. For a full list of slam poetry events in Arizona, visit azpoet.com.

All-Arizona Championship Poetry Slam

The All-Arizona Championship Poetry Slam will take place Saturday, March 9, at the Global Water Maricopa Center in the town of Maricopa. Poets from around the state will compete in slams held in four communities — Sedona, Flagstaff, Maricopa and Prescott — with each selecting their top three poets to send to the finals, in addition to drawing for the final three slots.

The 15 poets will compete in the championships hosted by Thomas Cooper, a slam poet from the Phoenix area who has represented Arizona a several regional events, and who made it to the finals ot the  Bigfoot Poetry Slam in Oregon. Cooper has coached youth slam teams, featured at events, judged slams and hosted events, which is now his focus.

Founded in 2018 and formerly hosted the late Arizona slam poetry legend Bernard “The Klute” Schober, the All-Arizona Championship is sponsored by the Maricopa Arts Council and the city of Maricopa.

What is Poetry Slam? 

Founded at the Green Mill Tavern in Chicago in 1984 by Marc Smith, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport designed to get people who would otherwise never go to a poetry reading excited about the art form when it becomes a high-energy competition. Poetry slams are judged by five randomly chosen members of the audience who assign numerical value to individual poets' contents and performances.

Poetry slam has become an international artistic sport, with more than 100 major poetry slams in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe. Slam poets have opened at the Winter Olympics, performed at the White House and at the United Nations General Assembly and were featured on "Russell Simmons' Def Poets" on HBO.

Sedona has sent four-poet teams to represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., Boston, Cambridge, Mass., Oakland, Calif., Decatur, Ga., Denver and Chicago.

Lydia Gates

"Langston" by Christopher Fox Graham

"Langston"

by Christopher Fox Graham

for one little girl

growing up in the segregated South,

Langston was her favorite 

Poet Langston Hughes signs autographs for young fans.
Photograph by Griffith J. Davis/Griffith J. Davis Photographs and Archives

in the Heart of Harlem

top floor 20 East 127th

Hughes howled for dreams deferred

in eleven revolutions 

the stinking rotten meat of Jim Crow

festering like a sore

running north from Joplin to New York

like he did

redlining himself into the Renaissance 

and a coming revolution

The Langston Hughes House is a historic home located in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City. It is an Italianate style dwelling built in 1869. It is a three story with basement, rowhouse faced in brownstone and measuring 20 feet wide and 45 feet deep. Noted African American poet and author Langston Hughes (1902–1967) occupied the top floor as his workroom from 1947 to 1967

“A poet should start the revolution

but never let a poet lead the revolution”

Hughes found his home in Harlem

and “Harlem” found its home

in "Montage of a Dream Deferred,”

in “The Selected Poems”

in “the Collected Poems”

in the anthologies and college textbooks

where the dream could sag like a heavy load

and one little girl

growing up in the segregated South,

handwrote her favorite:

“A world I dream where
               black or white,

“Whatever race you be,

“Will share the bounties of 

              the earth

“And every man is free,”

Hughes and King

the New Yorker and Alabaman

the communist and the Christian

traded stanzas and sermons

turning a poet’s revolutionary dream

into preacher’s dream of revolution

Poet Langston Hughes [Feb. 1, 1901-May 22, 1967], left, was called the father of the Harlem Renaisssance literary and arts movement. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. [Jan. 15, 1929-April 4, 1968] led the Civil Rights Movement until his assassination. Photo of Langston Hughes courtesy of Carl Van Vechten/Carl Van Vechten Trust/Beinecke Library, Yale Photo of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. courtesy of Marion S. Trikosko

In Lorraine Hansberry’s hands,

Hughes’ “Harlem” dried up

and tasted like a "Raisin in the Sun"

from the pulpit at Dexter Avenue Baptist,

in the heart of Montgomery

shattered raisins and blasted sores

of unfilled hopes, unrealized dreams

became the revolution’s war cry

in the hands 

of an Alabama preacher

with an army of churches at his back 

a dream deferred 

called all kinds of names

riding in the back end of the bus for no reason

swimming with its head deep under water

given no release

must explode

into bus boycotts

lunch counter sit-ins

Freedom Rides

Mississippi burning

the Little Rock Nine

the riot at Ole Miss

Emmitt Till in a casket

George Wallace in a doorway

John Lewis across a bridge in Selma

with a preacher’s army behind him

racial slurs from schoolchildren

and Ruby Bridges

defiant 

like 6-year-olds always are

an army unto herself

President Barack Obama, Ruby Bridges and representatives of the Norman Rockwell Museum view Rockwell’s "The Problem We All Live With,” hanging in a West Wing hallway near the Oval Office, July 15, 2011. Bridges is the girl portrayed the painting, then 6-years-old, on her way to William Frantz Elementary School, an all-white public school, on Nov. 14, 1960, during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis. She was escorted by four deputy U.S. marshals
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

before the March on Washington,

when, at the feet of the poet of Gettysburg,

“Emancipator looking down on demonstrators." Participants in the March on Washington in front of the Lincoln Memorial and massed along both sides of the Reflecting Pool, viewed from behind Abraham Lincoln statue” on Aug. 28, 1963. 
Photo by James K. Atherton for United Press International/Shorpy

the preacher turned revolution back into poetry

made a dream deferred into dream to come

into freedom ringing

quoted verses in the Bible

spoke verses that ought to be

dreamt of a nation finally faithful to its creed

there was one little girl

growing up in the segregated South,

who said Langston was her favorite

she collected, annotated and footnoted his poems

worn the pages rough in her collection

left bookmarks with her favorites

“Sunday Morning Prophesy”

“I, Too”

“Freedom Train”

added the poems the editors omitted,

for a grandson unborn

in case he became a poet

or led a revolution

she heard him read poems, once 

before the Long Hot Summer of ‘67

before brother Malcolm was shot

before reverend King was shot

before a bomb in Birmingham

killed four little girls

she heard him read poems, once

on a tour in Atlanta

sharing dreams so syrupy sweet

they would crust and sugar over

into a revolution burning

from her Atlanta

in the segregated South 

to his Harlem

Born in Joplin, Mo., Langston Hughes moved to New York City in 1947, and lived of his time in the city in the top apartment at 20 E. 127th Street in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, N.Y., until his death in May 1967. Photo by Robert W. Kelley/The Life Picture Collection

Langston spoke to her,

the way no other poet did

Langston was her favorite 

"which no one could imagine"

she said, 

a little white girl

growing up in the segregated South

she never met my son

she died 8 months before he was born

but we named our son

Langston

to honor him

to remember her

not for the revolution

but for their dream

Sylvia Rebie Redfield (December 14, 1925 - July 28, 2021)

of all her great-grandchilren

Langston 

would be her favorite

Salt Lake City poetry slam powerhouse R.J. Walker features at Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, Jan. 13

 With 2023 in the rear-view mirror and 2024 underway, the Sedona Poetry Slam enters its 15th season (but 16th year!) of performance poets bringing high-energy, competitive spoken word to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 13.

Between rounds, Salt Lake City spoken word powerhouse R.J. Walker will perform a featured set. A poetry slam is like a series of high-energy, three-minute one-person plays, judged by the audience. Anyone can sign up to compete in the slam for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize.

R.J. Walker

RJ Walker is a performance poet and voice actor from Salt Lake City, Utah. Walker has performed at the National Poetry Slam numerous times, representing Salt Lake City and Sugar House Utah. At the Individual World Poetry Slam he was a showcased poet on final stage and placed sixth overall at the 2017 Individual world poetry slam.

 

Walker won the NPS Spirit of the Slam award for organizing the first Compliment Deathmatch event. 

   

The next year he placed fourth at the National Poetry Slam with the Salt City Unified team. He is a winner of the Button Poetry video contest.

   

In Salt Lake City, Walker is the host and operator of The Greenhouse Effect Open Mic, SLC’s longest running open mic style event. Walker is a TEDX SLC speaker and was a keynote speaker for the League of Utah Writers’ Quills Conference.

>Outside of poetry, Walker has narrated over 30 audiobooks, designed escape rooms, written murder mystery adventures, designed alternate reality games that take players on adventures through the urban exploration of Salt Lake City and written five produced plays for Salt Lake Community College, Wasatch Theatre Company and The Utah Arts Alliance.

   

 He is an Irene Ryan-nominated actor and an ACTF finalist in playwriting. He is also a runner up for the ACTF devised theatre competition.

Currently on the creative team for The Box theatre, Walker serves as a playwright in residence and is the executive director of Lords of Misrule theatre company which pioneers mutual-aid focused theatre arts.

Open Slam

To compete in the slam, poets will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted. The poets are judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam.

Slam poetry is an art form that allows written page poets to share their work alongside theatrical performers, hip-hop artists and lyricists. Poets come from as far away as Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, competing against adult poets from Sedona and Cottonwood, college poets from Northern Arizona University and youth poets from Sedona Red Rock High School. All types of poetry are welcome on the stage, from street-wise hip-hop and narrative performance poems, to political rants and introspective confessionals. Any poem is a "slam" poem if performed in a competition. All poets get three minutes per round to entertain and inspire the audience with their creativity.

   

Mary D. Fisher Theatre is located at 2030 W. SR 89A, Suite A-3, in West Sedona. Tickets are $12. For tickets, call 282-1177 or visit SedonaFilmFestival.org. The next poetry slams of the season will be held on Saturdays, Feb. 3; March 9; April 13, featuring Briana Grace Hammerstrom of Portland. Ore., by way of Flagstaff, May 11 and finally on June 8. The prize money is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporters Jeanne and Jim Freeland. Email foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up early to compete or by the Friday before the slam or at the door the day of the slam. Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive. >For more information, visit sedonafilmfestival.com or foxthepoet.blogspot.com. a href="https://www.azpoet.com/" target="_blank">For a full list of slam poetry events in Arizona, visit azpoet.com.

What is Poetry Slam?

Founded at the Green Mill Tavern in Chicago in 1984 by Marc Smith, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport designed to get people who would otherwise never go to a poetry reading excited about the art form when it becomes a high-energy competition. Poetry slams are judged by five randomly chosen members of the audience who assign numerical value to individual poets' contents and performances.

   

Poetry slam has become an international artistic sport, with more than 100 major poetry slams in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe. Slam poets have opened at the Winter Olympics, performed at the White House and at the United Nations General Assembly and were featured on "Russell Simmons' Def Poets" on HBO. Sedona has sent four-poet teams to represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., Boston, Cambridge, Mass., Oakland, Calif., Decatur, Ga., Denver and Chicago.

"Rock'em Sock'em" by Lauren Perry

 Lauren Perry performing "Rock'em Sock'em" at The Rebel Lounge in Phoenix, on Oct. 18, 2022.

Ghost Poetry Show is committed to creating a community of writers from the greater Phoenix area (and beyond) to share their work on stage. We take pride in having poets that have never performed their work in front of anyone, all the way up to poets that have competed at the national level. No matter gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or age anyone can take the stage and compete in the three round poetry slam.

"10 Rules" by Monarch the Poet

 

Monarch the Poet performing "10 Rules" at The Rebel Lounge in Phoenix, AZ on September 12, 2022.

Ghost Poetry Show is committed to creating a community of writers from the greater Phoenix area (and beyond) to share their work on stage. We take pride in having poets that have never performed their work in front of anyone, all the way up to poets that have competed at the national level. No matter gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or age anyone can take the stage and compete in the three round poetry slam.

"Grass" by Carl Sandburg

The Pyramid at Austerlitz

"Grass"

by Carl Sandburg

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Shovel them under and let me work—

                                          I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

                                          What place is this?

                                          Where are we now?

                                          I am the grass.

                                          Let me work.

The Lion Mound at Waterloo

"Three Years Later" by Atlas St. Cloud

"Three Years Later" by Atlas St. Cloud  at The Rebel Lounge in Phoenix on Oct. 18, 2022.

Ghost Poetry Show is committed to creating a community of writers from the greater Phoenix area (and beyond) to share their work on stage. We take pride in having poets that have never performed their work in front of anyone, all the way up to poets that have competed at the national level. No matter gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or age anyone can take the stage and compete in the three round poetry slam.

"The Minister of Loneliness" by Sarah Kay

 "The Minister of Loneliness" by Sarah Kay 

at Gray Area in San Francisco, Calif.

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Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.

We seek to showcase the power and diversity of voices in our community. By encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, we hope to broaden poetry's audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.

Salt Lake City poetry slam powerhouse R.J. Walker features at Sedona Poetry Slam on Jan. 13

With 2023 in the rear-view mirror and 2024 underway, the Sedona Poetry Slam enters its 15th season (but 16th year!) of performance poets bringing high-energy, competitive spoken word to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 13.

Between rounds, Salt Lake City spoken word powerhouse R.J. Walker will perform a featured set. A poetry slam is like a series of high-energy, three-minute one-person plays, judged by the audience. Anyone can sign up to compete in the slam for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize.

R.J. Walker

RJ Walker is a performance poet and voice actor from Salt Lake City, Utah. Walker has performed at the National Poetry Slam numerous times, representing Salt Lake City and Sugar House Utah. At the Individual World Poetry Slam he was a showcased poet on final stage and placed sixth overall at the 2017 Individual world poetry slam.

 

Walker won the NPS Spirit of the Slam award for organizing the first Compliment Deathmatch event. 

   

The next year he placed fourth at the National Poetry Slam with the Salt City Unified team. He is a winner of the Button Poetry video contest.

   

In Salt Lake City, Walker is the host and operator of The Greenhouse Effect Open Mic, SLC’s longest running open mic style event. Walker is a TEDX SLC speaker and was a keynote speaker for the League of Utah Writers’ Quills Conference.

>Outside of poetry, Walker has narrated over 30 audiobooks, designed escape rooms, written murder mystery adventures, designed alternate reality games that take players on adventures through the urban exploration of Salt Lake City and written five produced plays for Salt Lake Community College, Wasatch Theatre Company and The Utah Arts Alliance.

   

 He is an Irene Ryan-nominated actor and an ACTF finalist in playwriting. He is also a runner up for the ACTF devised theatre competition.

Currently on the creative team for The Box theatre, Walker serves as a playwright in residence and is the executive director of Lords of Misrule theatre company which pioneers mutual-aid focused theatre arts.

Open Slam

To compete in the slam, poets will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted. The poets are judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam.

Slam poetry is an art form that allows written page poets to share their work alongside theatrical performers, hip-hop artists and lyricists. Poets come from as far away as Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, competing against adult poets from Sedona and Cottonwood, college poets from Northern Arizona University and youth poets from Sedona Red Rock High School. All types of poetry are welcome on the stage, from street-wise hip-hop and narrative performance poems, to political rants and introspective confessionals. Any poem is a "slam" poem if performed in a competition. All poets get three minutes per round to entertain and inspire the audience with their creativity.

   

Mary D. Fisher Theatre is located at 2030 W. SR 89A, Suite A-3, in West Sedona. Tickets are $12. For tickets, call 282-1177 or visit SedonaFilmFestival.org. The next poetry slams of the season will be held on Saturdays, Feb. 3; March 9; April 13, featuring Briana Grace Hammerstrom of Portland. Ore., by way of Flagstaff, May 11 and finally on June 8. The prize money is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporters Jeanne and Jim Freeland. Email foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up early to compete or by the Friday before the slam or at the door the day of the slam. Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive. >For more information, visit sedonafilmfestival.com or foxthepoet.blogspot.com. a href="https://www.azpoet.com/" target="_blank">For a full list of slam poetry events in Arizona, visit azpoet.com.

What is Poetry Slam?

Founded at the Green Mill Tavern in Chicago in 1984 by Marc Smith, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport designed to get people who would otherwise never go to a poetry reading excited about the art form when it becomes a high-energy competition. Poetry slams are judged by five randomly chosen members of the audience who assign numerical value to individual poets' contents and performances.

   

Poetry slam has become an international artistic sport, with more than 100 major poetry slams in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe. Slam poets have opened at the Winter Olympics, performed at the White House and at the United Nations General Assembly and were featured on "Russell Simmons' Def Poets" on HBO. Sedona has sent four-poet teams to represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., Boston, Cambridge, Mass., Oakland, Calif., Decatur, Ga., Denver and Chicago.

"The Distance" by Danny Sherrard

 

"The Distance"

by Danny Sherrard

put me in the distance 

now if you guys don't know

the Distance 

it's out there 

it's kind of like where the truth has this way 

of answering all your questions 

without even having to speak 

like the first time you set eyes on the first love of your life 

as they were just walking down the street 

put me in the distance 

where you can riddle rumors out about my existence

like maybe the mighty Mike McGee will say

"I heard that Danny was kidnapped 

by a renegade Amazon tribe in the Amazon 

and they took him under their wing 

so now his blowgun skills 

phhhhhhhhhhhhhhhwop!

are impeccable"

See when I'm in the distance myth-making it ain't gonna be my job anymore 

it'll be yours 

and I think it would be just what the doctor ordered 

if I was in the distance so long

that there was a band of Danny impersonators 

running the streets of Providence 

like quicksand horses 

that everyone's eyes could just sort of sink into 

and I feel it like our hearts are all in the distance 

pumping vision into our blood and blood back into our vision 

distance is being able to see things from the inside out 

distance is where the future grows 

distance puts the marrow in tomorrow 

distance is what I want to eat for breakfast 

it's the bullseye tattooed the inside of my solar plexus 

and only the sunset can pierce it 

so CR when I'm gone 

I'll be gone 

my back would be turned 

by the time y'all's arrows are drawn 

the distance that I'm all wrapped up in 

will put the potential energy in your quiver 

distance is the backbone in my swagger 

and the twang in my stupid honesty 

see without the distance my gunslingers wrists 

hang lifeless with arthritis at my sides 

and gypsy of my lips forgets how to kiss the sky 

without the distance 

some nights I grind my wisdom teeth into a fine powder 

and I lace my cigarette other nights 

I use it 

to fill the empty hour glasses 

I put them in the world 

where things always get turned upside down 

to feel like I have more time 

I do headstands 

on escalators

I'll hit my spirit with the reflex hammer

just to see if its knee jerks 

I get used to the different-day same T-shirt 

I'll play with symbols and reverse and reverse till I bleed earth 

listen, these words are patchwork nothing 

I left my patchworks right between West 4th and Bleecker

so now I band up the box 

of the past 

with a blindfold on 

I'll keep tomorrow a breath away 

and break dawn like an egg across the home of your hate 

because distance 

is a dynamite psycho static patchwork matchstick stuck on motion 

and I'm a riverstone explosion 

a chiseled whisperin' echo crumbling in on itself 

a clover grown its fourth leaf 

check your kinetics 

check my kinetics 

striking lightning off the Braille of our pulse

put me in the distance and I will go 

I will go to the pawn shop at the end of the universe 

where the pawn shop owner 

keeps his beard in check 

with that razor blade you may have traded in for a second chance 

and he'll look at me 

from behind those elusive crossed arms 

and that wayward smile 

that pawn shop owners often have 

and I'll just take a look around 

I'll see the angel wings slung up on the walls 

and all of our old dreams 

bottled in jars on shelves 

that slant for the weight 

until I realized that this 

is as far as I can go 

I'll move the distance out of the way 

walk up to that pawn shop owner and say:

"listen, I've got a great story

it's about a spirit 

trying to find his way 

back to his bones

and I'm willing to trade it in

just so long as you can give me directions

on how to get back home"

 

Danny Sherrard wows the crowd at the Applesauce Teahouse in Flagstaff in November 2007

Born in Seattle, Washington on August 29, 1985, Sherrand he won the Individual National Poetry Slam competition in 2007, becoming the youngest competitor at that time to win such a title. In 2008 Sherrard won France's Poetry World Cup where he competed against national champions from 15 countries.

Sherrard was on the Seattle poetry slam teams in 2007 and 2008 and the 2009 HawaiiSlam team.

At the beginning of 2009 Danny Sherrard toured with the spoken word group The Spilljoy Ensemble composed of himself, Jon Sands, Shira Erlichman and Ken Arkind.

Sherrard's first book, "Cast Your Eyes like River Stones into the Exquisite Dark," was released in 2009 through Write Bloody Publishing.

Sedona Poetry Slam 2023-24 flyer

 

"Justino" by Ryan Brown

"Justino"

By Ryan Brown

It took him forty-eight years

to become a dishwasher

at Pita Jungle.

Nine bucks an hour,

thirty-some hours a week,

sweat pouring off his brow

to mask the exhaustion of a face

that is no longer concerned with fairness.

He is here, everyday,

fingers to the grindstone,

tougher than the forgotten beef jerky

in some badass rebel biker's

leather jacket pocket.

He is the Zen master,

the rush without the hurry,

too grateful for what he has

and for that, 

he does not blend in there,

but this is one of his high points.

Justino does the dirty work

in a restaurant that expects

wine glasses to sparkle

like they haven't been whored out

to fifty colors of lipstick

in the last two weeks alone.

When you can't speak English

or read in any language

but the blue, green, 

and orange tongues of dish soap,

it is difficult to embellish

your minimal education on a job application,

where only a name and previous work experience

sweat off the page,

as if about to be interrogated 

by bitter men in blue uniforms.

"Quiero trabajar."

"Quiero estar contento"

and in Arizona there is a chance, 

there are truckloads of wasted food,

and it is far easier to feed a backbone

whose vertebrae have the weight of

an entire family hanging on

for survival.

This is one of his high points, 

and at five-foot-five

Justino still reaches like a summit.

He was raised ten sniper-scope

magnifications away from an America 

that will cross the ocean

armed and blindfolded

to siphon a stranger's oil,

but won't speak patiently

with the next door neighbors about

changes that need to happen

on our shared soil.

His existence isn't waist-deep 

in politics anymore;

this is all too human for puppet shows now.

It all happened in a cluster of struggle

before he could choose the outcome of the story

through a ballot box,

so he wrote it with the distance

between two constitutions,

determined as the sun

to run circles around us.

He exercises patience everyday,

arms unwinding only after 10 p.m.,

thousands of miles and light years from childhood,

the Sahara breathing sand 

on each country's land,

but we aren't supposed to know

we have this much in common.

The invisible particles of a hundred wasted dinners

cling to his skin like the smog smothering 

both Downtown Phoenix and Mexico City.

His fists are iron 

and have been crushing minutes 

into nickels since he was 9 years old.  

He is 48 going on 60

going on "what-did-all-these-years-evaporate-into?"

like he ever had a choice,

like he wasn't born into making things easier

for people who never had it hard.

The grindstone always looks like a rolling highway

when you've got your face pressed against it,

and 50 years from now,

his skin will be so

wrinkled and rough and wise,

it won't even be real.

Some Americans are still compelled

to resist a society where different nationalities 

are forced to cooperate peacefully.

They hate the idea so much,

that sometimes, 

they even write an email about it,

or a bill.

But his time is too precious for the bias 

of blue comfort and hungry fear.

He wants only to give a piece

of this world to his family,

and in a place where people

would rather have the world

handed to them, 

he does one hell 

of a job.

Ryan Brown is a poet's poet in every sense of the word. The mountain town of Flagstaff is known for a poetry slam scene where poets come together as a community, and  Brown was at the center of the growth as the FlagSlam Poetry Slam's slammaster from 2008 to 2012.

Brown attended four National Poetry Slam competitions as a member of the FlagSlam team in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012, getting as far as the semi-finals round in 2009. At the helm of Flagstaff's slam scene, Brown brought in featured poets such as Andrea Gibson and Gypsee Yo to help reinvigorate the poetry community in a town still bursting with poetic flavor a decade late.

An English major at Northern Arizona University, Brown collaborated often with poets such as Frank O'Brien, John Cartier and Sedona's Jessica Guadarrama and Christopher Fox Graham. He writes with the future in mind, his poems often revolving around the intimacy of human relationships.

After graduating with an English degree from NAU in 2012, Brown taught English in South Korea. He now lives in Nashville, Tenn.