I Already Know You

Azami and I wrote this poem together based on a poem she started writing about me. We performed it for kids at Mohave High School in Bullhead City.

I Already Know You a duo poem written by Azami and Christopher Fox Graham
Azami	CFG
Maybe I should have warned him	Maybe I should have warned her
that I’ve been through this before
	that this is unfamiliar territory
because I knew from that first moment	but I knew from that first moment
everything about him	everything about her
without having to know anything about him
“I already know you”	“I already know you”
is what slipped from my lips
	I felt it in her hips
but those four simple words
	the way she looked at me
can’t begin to gauge the familiarity	can’t begin to gauge the familiarity
so I stayed	so she stayed
parting with old friends
and being welcomed by new ones
as has become so routine
	moving in within days
	like she belonged here
	and I was the stranger
of my solitary lifestyle	of my solitary lifestyle
to know that I was in love with her mind	to know that I was in love with his mind
it also took one look at the Star Wars painting
	mounted above the bed
and lightsaber adoring his wall
	I bought her one, too
to know that he was a geek
	and she loved it
I don’t have to catch him saying “frak”
to know he’s seen every episode
of Battlestar Galactica
	limited edition box set with deleted scenes
	and director’s commentary
	worth every penny
I had chosen loneliness	I had chosen loneliness
	one-night stands to pass the years
constantly falling in love
knowing that wanderlust
would eventually steal me away
	but she wanted to stay
	wrap her arms around me
	and sleep like tangled vines
so while
I was familiar with the heartache	I was familiar with the heartache
of love lost and found
	of love found, then lost
by the fourth day
I woke up in his arms listening
to the comedic ramblings
of Billy Collins
	Sushi Haiku:
	“Midsummer evening
	alone at the sushi bar
	just me and this eel”
and while we laughed together	and while we laughed together
I silently counted the minutes
wondering how long it would take him
to realize that which
I already knew	I already knew
but I think he figured it out
I think he figured it out	I think I figured it out
when I jokingly asked him to
“please regale me tales of ‘Star Wars’”
and while I rolled my eyes	OK, Han shot first, Jar-Jar is a racial stereotype
and while we cuddled skin to skin	and they didn’t show it, but Luke and Leia were conceived
on some lazy Saturday morning	on some lazy Saturday morning
I don’t have to believe in prophesies
	I believe in prophesies
to understand my human nature	to understand my human nature
so I begin my relationships	so I begin my relationships
with apologies and explanations these days
hoping that if I cover my tracks
it will soften the blow for later
so I begin my relationships	so I begin my relationships
	with coffee and a countdown
	hoping that if she leaves by sunrise
	I prevent the blow from ever landing
realizing that if you live in the moment	realizing that if you live in the moment
you’ve got nothing to fear	you’ve got nothing to fear
besides, I hear broken hearts
make for great poetic inspiration anyways
	my poems about broken hearts
	could fill libraries
so maybe I should have warned him	so maybe I should have warned her
that I fall in love often
	that I never fall in love
and that I’ve seen Battlestar Galactica, too
in the arms of a boy who reminds me of you
I’ve been through this before
	I’ve seen this before
and that same force that brought me
into your life like a hurricane
	breaking all of my rules
will someday bring me to the doorstep of
someone new
	someone new
	will one day fill your shoes
	we can only last so long
	before time parts our paths
	onto diverging roads
the time we share	the time we share
is to learn and teach each other	is to learn and teach each other
learn to love and live in the moment	learn to love and live in the moment
all of this has happened before	all of this has happened before
and all of this will happen again	and all of this will happen again

"Spoons" by Caroline Harvey

I fell in love with Caroline Harvey and her work in Austin in 2005. She still ranks up there with of the strongest female poets I've met on the national poetry slam scene.

Committed to a life's work of cultivating creativity, awareness and vibrant health, Caroline Harvey is an artist, educator and somatic therapist in Boston.

Caroline laughs when recalling that her imaginary friend as a little girl was the moon. One of her other earliest memories is of leading a meditation about "floating on the ocean" for a group of first grade friends at a slumber party, and she still has the feather collection she began in preschool.

A passionate communicator with a natural fascination for words and expression, Caroline began writing and performing plays, poetry and short stories as a child. Also a lover of movement, Caroline enjoyed formal dance classes for many years and continues to dance as often as she can. Her parents remind her that she was never very good at following the rules she didn't agree with; she skipped past both the third grade and her last two years of high school and at 16 she left home to follow the Grateful Dead around the country. Caroline then relocated to England where she studied creative writing, art history and philosophy at Oxford Tutorial College.

In 2002 Caroline was awarded a master’s degree in dance from University of California Los Angeles' Department of World Arts and Cultures where she wrote and performed a thesis about somatic healing, the witnessed and felt embodiment of intuition and a cross-cultural examination of sacred art. She dove into her studies, exploring anatomy, movement therapy, choreography and site-specific performance, the politics of the body, and many movement techniques including the sacred practices of Afro-Cuban dance and drumming. Both the renowned movement artist/choreographer Simone Forti and the celebrated theater revolutionary Peter Sellars sat on her thesis committee. While at UCLA she also studied at the Department of Theater, Film and Television where she served as a choreographer for films and was the Teaching Assistant for many of the "movement for actors" courses.

Additionally, Caroline holds a BFA in theater from Boston University where she graduated Summa Cum Laude and won the Dean's Award for Academic Excellence. Caroline is a devoted student of health and yoga pioneer Ana Forrest and is a graduate of her Foundational, Advanced, and Continuing Educational Forrest Yoga Teacher Trainings.

She feels incredibly lucky and wholeheartedly indebted to the many pilgrims, elders, family members and mentors who have led the way and lit her path.

A dedicated teacher, professional artist and health practitioner for over a decade, Caroline currently works as a yoga, dance and meditation instructor & workshop leader, a doula (birth attendant), and is in private practice as a somatic Therapist in Boston, specializing in Craniosacral Therapy. She is the creator of Sacred Groove, an ecstatic dance practice, Awakening the Yogini: Extraordinary Yoga and Education for Women, and CranioYoga, the artful synthesis of Restorative Yin Yoga and CranioSacral Therapy. Caroline also teaches two voice curricula, Free Your Voice and Embodied Poetics.

Caroline also teaches and performs poetry nationwide. She was featured in two documentaries and appeared on Season 5 of HBO’s Def Poetry. A past member and coach of multiple Poetry Slam Teams and currently the Poetry Mentor at Berklee College of Music, Caroline has been a part of victories on both national and regional stages. She is especially committed to facilitating creative writing classes for at-risk youth, survivors of trauma and those working to get free from drug and alcohol addiction and she recently completed a poetry and visual arts project, in conjunction with The Attleboro Arts Museum, for teens in foster care called "Between The Lines." She is honored to have been featured at schools and organizations such as YouthSpeaks, The Esalen Institute, Bristol Community College, Northeastern University, UC Berkeley and UCLA.

Caroline's writing, which tracks her belief that even the fiercest traumas contain within them the capacity for profound healing and beauty, has been published in various literary journals and anthologies including the 2005 National Poetry Slam Anthology "High Desert Voices" and the Harvard publication "The Charles River Review." She is currently working on a new collection of poems based on the women Salvador Dali painted and a book about her most recent travels in Asia and Central America.

She continues to collect feathers, to be curious, questioning, pioneering and wild, and she hopes never to stop talking to the moon.

"Arizona Summers" by Buddy Wakefield

I first met Buddy Wakefield in Arizona during his 2003 tour. He's always been a bright spot in the national poetry slam scene, if not for his bright and enjoyable poetry then for his sheer enthusiasm in performing. He's passed through Phoenix and Flagstaff numerous times, but one trip through Sedona brought him to the house of my former roommate Rebekah Crisp. One of the best times I spent with Buddy was shooting the shit in her kitchen for a few hours, talking about life, poetry and Crisp's eclectic collection raw foods and spices.

Seeing him make out with Daphne Gottlieb in the lobby of the National Poetry Slam hotel in St. Louis in 2004 was an odd thing, but totally sweet.

Buddy wrote "Arizona Summers" about his tour through our lovely state, and yes, we are out of our goddamn minds to live in this state.

Buddy Wakefieldis the two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champion featured on NPR, the BBC, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, and most recently signed to Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records.

In 2004 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Finals thanks to the support of anthropologist and producer Norman Lear then successfully defended that [arbitrary] title at the International Poetry Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands, against the national champions of seven European countries with works translated into Dutch.

In 2005 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Championship again and has gone on to share the stage with nearly every notable performance poet in the world in hundreds of venues internationally from The Fillmore in San Francisco and Scotland’s Oran Mor to San Quentin State Penitentiary, House of Blues New Orleans and CBGB’s.

In the spring of 2001 Buddy left his position as the executive assistant at a biomedical firm in Gig Harbor, Wash., sold or gave away everything he owned, moved to the small town of Honda Civic and set out to live for a living, touring North American poetry venues through 2003.

He still tours full time and considers annual Revival tours with Derrick Brown and Anis Mojgani, as well as separate tours with Ani DiFranco, to be the highlight of his career thus far.

Oh and the first time he performed with Saul Williams… that was pretty much awesome in the face.

Born in Shreveport, La., mostly raised in Baytown, Texas, now claiming Seattle, WA as home, Buddy has been a busker in Amsterdam, a lumberjack in Norway, a street vendor in Spain, a team leader in Singapore, a re-delivery boy, a candy maker, a street sweeper, a bartender, a maid, a construction worker, manager of a CD store, a bull rider and a booking agent. Wakefield is a growth junkie, elated son of a guitar repair woman, wingman of Giant Saint Everything, and remembers Kirkwood, NY.

Buddy, a Board of Directors member with Youth Speaks Seattle, is honored that his work is published internationally in several books and has been used to win national collegiate debate and forensics competitions. An author of Write Bloody Publishing, Wakefield is known for delivering raw, rounded, high vibration performances of humor and heart.

THERE IS NO ACCLAMATION FOR THIS ARTIST…

…except for the time one of Buddy’s hero’s, Benjamin Morse, called him “Monster of Energy, Keeper of Hope, Friend of My Soul…” That was a good one.

MORE ACCURATE BIO:

In the Fall of 1984 Anchor Bay Entertainment released a movie called Children of the Corn while Buddy lived in front of the corn fields near Niagara Falls, New York.

This traumatic event (coupled with extensive exposure to Kenny Rogers and Lionel Richie) may or may not have led to Buddy becoming a sensitive poet puss who plays marbles in the trees, listens by talking and keeps fingers on pulse.

"The Kurosawa Champagne" by Derrick Brown

Derrick Brown is one of my favorite slam poets. His poetry builds metaphorical constructs that I often find beyond brilliant and he conveys a sincerity in his delivery that is hard for other slam poets to emulate.

I met Derrick Brown when he toured Flagstaff in 2001 and I have seen him on stage a few times since. In 2003, I gave him a sofa on which to crash for three days during a tour through the Phoenix area. He gave one of the best features I have ever seen in Flagstaff around 2005.

Azami has recently discovered his tracks on my iPod and fallen in love with them, specifically "The Kurosawa Champagne" and "A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me."



The Kurosawa Champagne
By Derrick Brown

Tonight
your body shook,
hurling your nightmares
back to Cambodia.

Your nightgown wisped off
into Ursula Minor.

I was left here on earth feeling alone,
paranoid about the Rapture.

Tonight
I think it is safe to say we drank too much.
Must I apologize for the volume in my slobber?
Must I apologize for the best dance moves ever?
No.

Booze is my tuition to clown college.

I swung at your purse.
It was staring at me.

We swerved home on black laughter.
bleeding from forgettable boxing.

I asked you to sleep in the shape of a trench
so that I might know shelter.

I drew the word surrender in the mist of your breath,
waving a white sheet around your body.

‘Dear, in the morning let me put on your make-up for you.
I’ll be loading your gems with mascara
then I’ll tell you the truth…’

I watched black ropes and tears ramble down your face.

Lady war paint.

A squad of tiny men rappels down those snaking lines
and you say;
“Thank you for releasing all those fuckers from my life.”

You have a daily pill case.
There are no pills inside.
It holds the ashes of people who died

…the moment they saw you.

The cinema we built was to play the greats
but we could never afford the power
so in the dark cinema
you painted pictures of Kurosawa.

I just stared at you like Orson Welles,
getting fat off your style.

You are a movie that keeps exploding.
You are Dante’s fireplace.

We were so broke,
I’d pour tap water into your mouth,
burp against your lips
so you could have champagne.

You love champagne.

Sparring in the candlelight.

Listen—
the mathematical equivalent of a woman’s beauty
is directly relational
to the amount or degree
other women hate her.

You, dear, are hated.

Your boots are a soundtrack to adultery.
Thank God your feet fall in the rhythm of loyalty.

If this kills me,
slice me julienne
uncurl my veins
and fashion yourself a noose
so I can hold you
once more.

Derrick Brown, a former paratrooper for the 82nd Airborne, gondolier, magician and fired weatherman, now travels the world and performs his written work. From Nashville, he is dedicated to bringing American poetry into rock and roll status.

And, yes, he was a weatherman in Flagstaff ...


Brown has consistently been the opening act for Indie rock act, Cold War Kids and has been booked with The White Stripes and performed with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. His work has been featured in books with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins, Viggo Mortensen, Jeff Buckley and Jim Carrol.

As one of the most original and well-traveled writer/performers in the country, Brown has gained a cult following for his poetry performances all over the United States. and through Europe. A poetic terrorism group has taken to sticking and tagging his metaphors across the globe.

To date, Brown has performed at over 1,200 venues and universities internationally including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, La Sorbonne in Paris and The Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City.

Known for a moving show that incorporates spoken word, minimalist music, and even sound effects, Brown is unique for being an outstanding performer but is foremost a page poet. He has won the California Independent Book Critics' Award in 2004, and his performance poetry has won six first-place poetry slam finishes in Venice Beach, England, and Germany.

"This is a suit " by Joaquín Zihuatanejo

Names are important. Some names have a heritage that can create a powerful poem. Dallas poet Joaquín Zihuatanejo, whom I heard in Austin, Texas, in 2004, wrote this poem about his name, Joaquín, that relates to a Chicano culture figure.

Joaquín Zihuatanejo is a father, a husband, a poet,a spoken word artist and an award-winning teacher. He was born and raised in the barrio of East Dallas where his grandfather, Silas C. Medina, showed him what the novelist, Rudolfo Anaya, describes as the Path of Light.

Through his poetry he strives to capture the duality of his culture, the Chicano culture. His is a mestizo culture that is steeped in duality, and in his poetry he depicts the essence of barrio life, writing about subjects as varied as his grandfather's garden, the experiences of a youth that was plagued by gang violence, a heritage that is steeped in sacrifice and borders.

Zihuatanejo writes of borders that are both actual and metaphorical, borders that plague a people seen as immigrants in their own homeland. Zihuatanejo is a member of the 2004 Dallas Poetry Slam Team and a Grand Slam Spoken Word Poetry Champion of Dallas. Zihuatanejo and Dallas Slam placed third out of 60 competing teams from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingfom at the 2004 National Poetry Slam competition in St. Louis.

Zihuatanejo performs his work at various conferences, poetry recitals, and poetry slams throughout the country. He competed in the Step to the Mic Spoken Word Competition in Stockton, Calif., finishing in the top 10 out of some 100 competing poets. As well as being a featured poet at the Austin International Poetry Festival, Zihuatanejo's work was published in the 2004 Di-verse-City Poetry Anthology. He has been the keynote speaker/performer at several conferences related to issues concerning Mexican-Americans. He has self-published two collections of poetry, "Barrio Songs" and "I of the Storm" and has completed his first spoken word CD, "Barrio Songs, A Spoken Word Collection." He has had the privilege of being selected as the poet to open up for award winning poet and novelists Maya Angelou and E. Lynn Harris at their recent recitals at universities in the North Texas area.

Zihuatanejo currently lives in Denton, Texas, with his wife Aída, his two daughters, Aiyana and Dakota, and their two guinea pigs, Pancho and Cisco.