This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.
This poem was written in the early 1900s by the Tunisian poet Aboul-Qacem Echebbi during the French occupation of Tunisia. It has found new meaning for Egyptians rebelling against dictator Hosni Mubarak.
ألا أيها الظالم المستبد
حبيب الظلام عدو الحياه
سخرت بأنات شعب ضعيف
و كفك مخضوبة من دماه
و سرت تشوه سحر الوجود
و تبذر شوك الاسى في رباه
رويدك لا يخدعنك الربيع
و صحو الفضاء و ضوء الصباح
ففي الافق الرحب هول الظلام و قصف الرعود و عصف الرياح
حذار فتحت الرماد اللهيب
و من يبذر الشوك يجن الجراح
تأمل هنالك انى حصدت رؤوس الورى و زهور الأمل
و رويت بالدم قلب التراب اشربته الدمع حتى ثمل
سيجرفك سيل الدماء
و يأكلك العاصف المشتعل
To the Tyrants of the World...
You, the lovers of the darkness...
You, the enemies of life...
You've made fun of innocent people's wounds; and your palm covered with their blood
You kept walking while you were deforming the charm of existence and growing seeds of sadness in their land
Wait, don't let the spring, the clearness of the sky and the shine of the morning light fool you...
Because the darkness, the thunder rumble and the blowing of the wind are coming toward you from the horizon
Beware because there is a fire underneath the ash
Who grows thorns will reap wounds
You've taken off heads of people and the flowers of hope; and watered the cure of the sand with blood and tears until it was drunk
The blood's river will sweep you away and you will be burned by the fiery storm.
When I was 16, still in high-school, I took a trip to Auschwitz. It was a hot sunny Summer day when I hit the road. I hitchhiked up the Vistula river the ancient city of Krakow, then further into the mountains, Auschwitz on the way.
The buildings of the main camp are made of red bricks, still look solid. The iron gate welcomes with the Inscription: ARBEIT MACHT FREI -- WORK LIBERATES.
Inside, several huge rooms, each filled with hair, combs, toothbrushes, eyeglasses, razors, belts, prosthetics, shoes, many of them children's shoes. . .
I could not speak for several days.
II
Years passed. My mother gives me a tour of Auschwitz and the sister-camp of Brzezinka -- Birkenau, Birch Forest. The forest of chimneys spread for miles along the railway tracks welcomes us. Most barracks were burned to cover the crimes. Only a few survived and the dead forest of chimneys.
Gas chambers at the end of the tracks, crematoria-furnaces right behind. All is neat and efficient. 3 million people were killed here.
My mother stops by the crematorium, says: "Sometimes we heard the screams as if people were thrown alive into the furnace." I want to embrace her, tell her I know. But she's already taken off, marches, measures her steps like someone who knows exactly where she is going. I follow her into one of the barracks.
She stops by an alcove 2 by 2 yards, three shelves of wooden planks inside, points to the top one, says: "Tutaj spalam. Here's where I slept." "Alone?" I ask. "No, 10-12 women shared the bunk. One blanket, sometimes two. It wasn't all bad. We cuddled when it was cold."
She leads to a central place where the roll-call was taken, twice a day. "We would stand for hours in cold, wind, snow, rain, especially when anyone had tried to escape. Sometimes the guards would bring them back and torture them in front of us," she says.
We walk to the parking lot. My mother stops by the Wall of Dead, kneels down, pulls out her cherry wood rosary worn thin by the touch of generations: "Swiêta Marjo! Matko Boga! Módl siê za nami grzesznymi, teraz i w gozinê naszej smierci," she whispers and I join her with Zen chant: "Namu Dai Bosa! Homage to the Great Compassionate One!" Holy Maria! Namu Dai Bosa! Mother of God! Namu Dai Bosa! Pray for us now and at the hour of our death!
I raise my eyes. Calm mountaintops loom on the horizon.
III
My mother and I watch "The Trial in Nuremberg" in her tiny apartment overlooking the Vistula river. Hermann Goering, second in the Reich only to Hitler, claims to be oblivious to what happened in the camps.
My mother says, "Let's take a walk along the river. Wild geese may need food."
I typically post videos of poems before the poems, but I felt that the written poem was stronger than the performance simply because of the unbearable lightness of being in Part III, which is omitted from the video, in part, I believe, because it is very difficult to convey that sensation in a poetry slam opposed to a featured performance or a page read.
This poem was performed as a group piece with Stefan S. Sencerz and Amalia Ortiz, from the National Poetry Slam in Chicago 2003, where I first heard it.
Stefan S. Sencerz is professor of philosophy at Texas A&M in Corpus Cristi. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Rochester in 1992. He teaches Introduction to Philosophy, Foundations of Professional Ethics, Issues in Philosophy of Religion, Environmental Ethics, Eastern Spirituality and Western Thought, War, Terrorism & Ethics, Zen: Culture and Art and Philosophy & Science Fiction.
His published papers cover ethics and moral philosophy.
I first heard this moving poem at Southwest Shootout in Austin, Texas. To begin the poem, Stefan Sencerz instructed the crowd to phonetically pronounce the Polish tongue twister "Chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie w Strzebrzeszynie," and after we terribly repeated the finally assembled phrase, he said, "see how easy that was?" then proceeded to launch into the poem. It is best read while imagining it performed with an incredibly thick Polish accent.
"Where am I from? By Stefan S. Sencerz
Over and over and over again I great people with the usual "How are you?" and hear "What's up? Where are you from?"
"Detroit," I say, for I spent four great years in Motown, I left my heart in that town I found sunshine on a cloudy day, I still root for the Pistons.
"I knew you were not from here," I heard in Texas where I live now most of the time I meet with an incredulous stare "Yeah! Right! Detroit?! Where are you really from??"
I ponder this question for the matter is serious, feel like a beginner about to meet the Zen mind --
Where am I from, really, Who am I? What was my face before my parents were born? What is the sound of one hand?
I don't know. So I say, "I was born in Warsaw, Poland." "Say something in Polish!" I hear and oblige "Chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie w Strzebrzeszynie."
This sounds so weird that one can doubt it means anything, but it does: Chrzaszcz is a scarab, a kind of beetle, "brzmi" means "resounds," "w" stands for "in" or "amongst," trzcina is a kind of reed, and "Strzebrzeszyn" a name for a village. A scarab resounds amongst reeds, in the village of Strzebrzeszyn. Easy to say, if you are native, some claim impossible, if Polish is your second language..
Whichg leads me to my father it's Warsaw, 1943, the midst of the war my father, an officer of Polish underground receives an order to meet someone whom he had never seen before. So they must identify each other, they exchange the password greed each other with the usual
"Jak sie masz?" "How are you?" "Where are you from?"
"I am from Warsaw," my father says. "Great," the guy continues, "I need to get some tobacco?" "The best tobacconist is right here, right across the park," my father completes the password for now he knows this is the right guy the guy he was supposed to meet and kill a suspected Nazi spy.
They walk through the park. My father pulls out a pistol, points at the guy "You've been tried for treason , sentenced to death. In the name of the Polskiej Rzezcpospolitej . . . " And the guy says, "It's is some kind of mistake." So my father says, it's no mistake, we have surveillance photos of you. And the guy pulls out a photo of his young children bursts into tears and swears upon their heads and the love of the virgin Mary that he is innocent. So, my father says, "Who are you, really? I need some proof!" And the guy says, "Jestem Polakiem. I'm Polish." "Chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie w Strzebrzeszynie," fluently without any mistakes. And my father had mercy for him, and let him go.
Sometimes I wonder how could he trust him burdened by his orders burdened by the trust of his friends what would I've done had I been there? I don't know. I never had to kill someone who looked straight into my eyes and cried. I still do not know where I am really from.
Stefan S. Sencerz is professor of philosophy at Texas A&M in Corpus Cristi. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Rochester in 1992. He teaches Introduction to Philosophy, Foundations of Professional Ethics, Issues in Philosophy of Religion, Environmental Ethics, Eastern Spirituality and Western Thought, War, Terrorism & Ethics, Zen: Culture and Art and Philosophy & Science Fiction.
His published papers cover ethics and moral philosophy.
I wish people would stop referring to alleged Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner as a "slam poet."
That apparently comes from this quote in an Associated Press news story:
"'He made a lot of the people really uncomfortable, especially the girls in the class,' said Steven Cates, who attended an advanced poetry writing class with Loughner at Pima Community College last spring. Though he struck up a passing friendship with Loughner, he said a group of other students went to the teacher to complain about Loughner at one point."Another poetry student, Don Coorough, said Loughner read a poem about bland tasks such as showering, going to the gym and riding the busin wild 'poetry slam' style - 'grabbing his crotch and jumping around the room.'"When other students, always seated, read their poems, Coorough said Loughner 'would laugh at things that you wouldn't laugh at.' After one woman read a poem about abortion, 'he was turning all shades of red and laughing,' and said, 'Wow, she's just like a terrorist, she killed a baby,' Coorough said."'He appeared to be to me an emotional cripple or an emotional child,' Coorough said. 'He lacked compassion, he lacked understanding and he lacked an ability to connect.'"Cates said Loughner 'didn't have the social intelligence, but he definitely had the academic intelligence.'"
As an Arizona slam poet, one who legally owns several guns and a concealed weapons permit, going on a shooting spree isn't on my list of things to do. Part of the reason poets write poetry is because any frustration with have with the system, society or our personal lives already has a means of release, our words.
Be wary of the people who don't write poetry is all I'm saying. Who knows what's bottled up in there. At least with poets, you clearly know what special species of asshole we are by the end of a poem.
Being in a poetry class and performing poetry in a crazy fashion does not necessarily make one a slam poet. Going to a poetry slam and competing does. To my knowledge, none of the Tucson poets have said, "shit, we knew that Loughner guy, he slammed once!"
As such, we do not claim him.
(However, I have met poets to which this applies: "'He appeared to be to me an emotional cripple or an emotional child,' Coorough said. 'He lacked compassion, he lacked understanding and he lacked an ability to connect.'" You know who you are.)
Additionally, it seems as though both the Left and Right have jumped on this shooting for their own ends. The Right claims he was a crazed communist lefty nutcase who read The Communist Manifesto while the Left claims it was Sarah Palin's gunsight poster and the Right's "vitriolic" rhetoric.
Neither. Motha-fuckin' crazy is motha-fuckin' crazy.
To wit:
1) Have you ever know anyone who posts on a social networking site that one of their favorite book is The Communist Manifesto to have actually read The Communist Manifesto (unless they actually live in a commune and regularly attend Communist Party meetings)? No. And you haven't either.
2) Loughner's YouTube videos make no sense. Watch them. They are full of nonsensical, rambling syllogisms. You'll see someone who was not thinking rationally.
3) There's no evidence that Loughner tried to assassinate anyone because of what he saw, heard, or read. He had a lack of connection to the outside world; there's little evidence that what was going on outside would have made it into his skull; if so, he would have been more coherent in his communication in reverse, back toward us through his YouTube videos, a suicide note or manifesto.
4) Assassinations and political attacks are done for reasons, even if just to gain fame. Even Al-Qaida posts videos following suicide bombings. John Hinckley Jr. shot Reagan to impress Jodie Foster. Otherwise political attacks have no meaning outside of any random attack on any random person.
When the trial is over, if he's even ruled competent to stand trial, I feel we'll see Loughner's motives are more aligned with someone like Mark David Chapman - who shot John Lennon because voices in his head said he was the "Catcher in the Rye" - than because Sarah Palin made a lame poster or because Glenn Beck has a potato for a brain.
That being said, all my best to U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other survivors. My condolences to the familes of the six victims.
From 5 to 7 p.m., poets take the stage in Northern Arizona's longest running poetry open mic.
Now more than six years old, the Sedona Poetry Open Mic has regularly hosted amateur, professional, performance, page, published and closet poets. All poets, spoken word artists, lyricists, songwriters, rappers, MCs, comedians and storytellers are welcome. If your art can be spoken, come and speak.
Nearly 1,100 different poets have spoken on stage since the open mic was founded by its host, veteran slam poet Christopher Fox Graham.
As always, the open mic is round robin: one poem per poet, per round, and we cycle through the poets from start to finish. This means if you show up late, need to leave early or don't have too many poems to read, we can easily work you into the cycle seemlessly.
Java Love Café is located at 2155 W. Hwy. 89A, next to Harkins Theatres, Suite 118, West Sedona. To sign up, be at Java Love around 5ish. For more information, call Graham at (928) 517-1400 or e-mail to foxthepoet@yahoo.com.
If I won $380 million in a lottery, I'd have two arms surgically grafted to my body, just behind my current ones, and then two arms with fleshy wings like a bat grafted in the middle of my back, so 6 hands into total, which would make chores and travel super efficient.
Counting my legs, I'd have eight limbs, so you could call me the Octopoet.
And if you think that's gross, you'd be wrong. For one, I could shower 6 times as fast, and there's always someone who's into freaks. Add that to being a celebrity with $380 million, and getting a g.
Little Gidding, Part II By T.S. Eliot (Written in 1942, during the constant Luftwaffe air raids on London)
Ash on and old man's sleeve Is all the ash the burnt roses leave. Dust in the air suspended Marks the place where a story ended. Dust inbreathed was a house— The walls, the wainscot and the mouse, The death of hope and despair, This is the death of air.
There are flood and drouth Over the eyes and in the mouth, Dead water and dead sand Contending for the upper hand. The parched eviscerate soil Gapes at the vanity of toil, Laughs without mirth. This is the death of earth.
Water and fire succeed The town, the pasture and the weed. Water and fire deride The sacrifice that we denied. Water and fire shall rot The marred foundations we forgot, Of sanctuary and choir. This is the death of water and fire.
In the uncertain hour before the morning Near the ending of interminable night At the recurrent end of the unending After the dark dove with the flickering tongue Had passed below the horizon of his homing While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin Over the asphalt where no other sound was Between three districts whence the smoke arose I met one walking, loitering and hurried As if blown towards me like the metal leaves Before the urban dawn wind unresisting. And as I fixed upon the down-turned face That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge The first-met stranger in the waning dusk I caught the sudden look of some dead master Whom I had known, forgotten, half recalled Both one and many; in the brown baked features The eyes of a familiar compound ghost Both intimate and unidentifiable. So I assumed a double part, and cried And heard another's voice cry: 'What! are you here?' Although we were not. I was still the same, Knowing myself yet being someone other— And he a face still forming; yet the words sufficed To compel the recognition they preceded. And so, compliant to the common wind, Too strange to each other for misunderstanding, In concord at this intersection time Of meeting nowhere, no before and after, We trod the pavement in a dead patrol. I said: 'The wonder that I feel is easy, Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak: I may not comprehend, may not remember.' And he: 'I am not eager to rehearse My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten. These things have served their purpose: let them be. So with your own, and pray they be forgiven By others, as I pray you to forgive Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail. For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. But, as the passage now presents no hindrance To the spirit unappeased and peregrine Between two worlds become much like each other, So I find words I never thought to speak In streets I never thought I should revisit When I left my body on a distant shore. Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us To purify the dialect of the tribe And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight, Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort. First, the cold friction of expiring sense Without enchantment, offering no promise But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit As body and soul begin to fall asunder. Second, the conscious impotence of rage At human folly, and the laceration Of laughter at what ceases to amuse. And last, the rending pain of re-enactment Of all that you have done, and been; the shame Of motives late revealed, and the awareness Of things ill done and done to others' harm Which once you took for exercise of virtue. Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains. From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.' The day was breaking. In the disfigured street He left me, with a kind of valediction, And faded on the blowing of the horn.
Thanks, T.S., you douche, for ruining poetry promotion for the rest of us.
Although, Eliot's influence on poetry probably indirectly inspired the Beats to make poetry relevant again and also Marc "So What?" Smith to create slam to make it populist.
Poetry should be understandable. As language is meant to convey ideas from author to reader, speaker to listener, thus poetry, being language in its most polished form, should convey ideas in the clearest (William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow") or most elegant (John Milton's "Paradise Lost") or most bluntly straightforward (a slam satire) or most beautiful (Shane Koyczan's "The Crickets Have Arthritis" or Derrick C. Brown's "A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me") or most moving (Andrea Gibson's "Still") means -- depending on the poet, style and voice.
"The Waste Land" is the antithesis of poetry's purpose. It is forcefully convoluted with such obscure allusionary references that only Eliot scholars can sit down and read the thing without a footnoted guidebook to understand it. It also uses Greek, Italian and Sanskrit, none of which have I be fluent in since ... the accident ... and seem to have been added only to show off how wise and worldly, and better than you, Eliot was.
Of course, H.P. Lovecraft (horror author who gave us the ancient evil god Cthulhu), who hated Eliot probably as much I do, wrote a great satire of "The Waste Land," called "Waste Paper: A Poem Of Profound Insignificance," and it's a far more entertaining read. Lovecraft called "The Waste Land," "a practically meaningless collection of phrases, learned allusions, quotations, slang, and scraps in general."
And if you thought Eliot was a dick, you haven't met an Eliot scholar yet.
A Eliot scholar is the guy at the party who'll tell you why the 1998 E. Guigal Cote Rotie Brune et Blonde - which he says he's drinking - is vastly superior to the 1999 Alain Graillot Crozes Hermitage, which you're drinking -- although you just don't care to tell him you just helped the party's host fill those two bottles of expensive-looking wine from the same tap of Almaden box wine and, fuck, you only stopped to talk to this guy so your roommate could make moves on the hot hipster chick this douche-bag brought, and as soon as he gets her number and sets up a date, you're fuckin' out of here and headed to another party where the girl you like is double-fisting a pint of Guinness and a bottle of Jameson, like the kick-ass cool chick you love her for -- fuck, is this guy still talking?
The four-part "Little Gidding" series I vaguely remember reading in college, but yesterday, my mother sent me the highlighted passage as a New Year's Eve quote.
Which is why I love my mother.
(Whose married surname, coincidentally but irrelevantly, is Elliott.)
I watch CNBC. I read the Wall Street Journal. I check stock tickers, Study insider reports, Consult my broker on a daily basis. After careful deliberation, I have decided to empty my bank account, Convert it to unmarked twenty-dollar bills, Go directly to Las Vegas, Put it all on black. When the ball drops in my favor, I could use those liquid assests to diversify my portfolio, Invest heavily in pencils and apples, And for once, be on the ground floor - That place where all the stock brokers will land When they finally succumb to mantra of doom... The endless repetition of "Buy! Sell! Buy! Sell!" That turn becomes "JUMP!!! JUMP!!! JUMP!!!", Playing on an infinite loop in the back of their mind When they look out their office windows And imagine the sweet release of death Waiting for them on pavement below. Good. Give in to it, Wall Street, Embrace your destiny.
I want my 401K back. I'm not getting it back. I've been advised it resides at the First Bank of the Land of Imagination, Currently being managed by a crack team of leprechauns and unicorns, Being leveraged into moon beams and fairy dust. I shouldn't worry though. I'll get my disbursement check as soon as I begin collecting Social Security. This just in… I'm not getting Social Security either! So the time has come To beat our shares into pitchforks, Set our stock portfolios alight to guide our way, To storm the castle And kill the monster. Now, I’m not suggesting you head to the headquarters of Goldman Sachs With a pistol-grip pump shotgun, Kick down the door, Shout “I am the Angel of Death – the time of purification is at hand!” Then start paying out double-barrel killshot bonuses With a gleam in your eye and a song in your heart. Oh wait, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting! Because there will be a reckoning, A tallying of names and a cracking of skulls, And it will be easier for a camel to thread the eye of a needle Then it will be for a fat-cat to avoid my lead. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
Who is John Galt? Who cares. He’s dead. I killed him and he’s buried in a shallow, unmarked grave outside of town Next to the bodies of Adam Smith and Horatio Alger. Stop asking questions. Because it’s time for action. Swift, brutal, unthinking mob action. Let’s head to Wall Street Block all the exits at the New York Stock Exchange. Let’s give these American heroes the reward they so richly deserve. Let loose rabid bulls and bears as an appetizer of destruction, Rain down burning ticker tape like the wrath of God from the gallery, Sing “Auld Lang Zyme ” with the vengeful ghost of George Bailey, Sr. Then roast marshmallows on the smoking ruin, Toasting our lost fortunes as we drink from the skulls of Morgan Stanley and Charles Schawb. Because I watch CNBC and read the Wall Street Journal. I now know the true meaning of class warfare. The horror... The horror... Burn, Wall Street, Burn
Klute, The: A rare breed of Southern Arizona slam poet, originally raised in Southern Florida (however, he's not a native Floridian - rumors trace his origin back to Illinois).
Abhors use of rhyme schemes in poetry, writes almost exclusively in free verse. Frequent targets: the goth subculture, neoconservativism (especially Dick Cheney), and crass-commercialism. Member of the 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2006 Mesa National Slam teams (Mesa's 2005 slam champion), and 2008's Phoenix Slam Team. SlamMaster of the Mesa Poetry Slam. Has released three chapbooks of his work: 2002's "Escape Velocity", 2005's "Look at What America Has Done to Me", and 2008's "My American Journey". Ask him nicely and he might send you a copy. Primary habitat considered to be raves (especially desert parties), goth clubs, and dimly lit dive bars. Prefers vodka, rum, and absinthe when drinking. Is considered friendly, but when cornered, lashes out with a fury not seen since last Thursday. He's totally smitten with his girlfriend, Teresa - so don't ask him to dance. Feel free to buy him a drink, but remember, he's not putting out. No matter how much you beg.
People are talking about The Klute!
AZSlim, Espresso Pundit poster: Don't argue with The Klute. His hyperventilating and pure hypocrisy shown in these (and many other) posts makes reasoning with a two-year old who didn't get the popsicle he wanted seem tame by comparison.
Phoenix 944 Magazine says: Despite the heat, [The Klute] wears a black trench coat almost everywhere he goes and if the setting permits, he’ll blast through enough slanderous commentary to make Andrew Dice Clay blush. [He] admits he started slam poetry out of arrogance. He saw a performance and figured he could do better, after which he also admits he failed miserably. Today, his addiction for getting in front of the microphone and spitting out everything from a Dick Cheney haiku to a long-winded prose on race car driving to the late Hunter S. Thompson is as strong as his love for vodka and absinthe. If anyone’s seen “The Klute” in action, they’d know it. If they haven’t, they must.
Jerome duBois, The Tears of Things: You have one of the blackest hearts I've ever had the misfortune to glimpse.
Again, another old poem I recently found. This one was written Saturday, Sept. 18, 2004, at 3:10 p.m.
The Lives of Other Men
on these mornings I wish for the lives of other men who can not calculate the distances between faraway cities who do not know the details of how what came when
the bliss of minds who do not know the differences between men and assume that all have the lives we live
I wish the stories I could tell were fictions whose specifics were authored, not endured because the narrations of fallen systems and blind eyes toward good men proves the privilege of my birth and our ideals are pretty parchment passages with good intentions I'm ashamed I once believed
this life is an accident the branches of my tree belong to a better man who knew to not waste them but I stepped in and held tight the lie that I had it rough because suburban religions preach to the choir with bake sales and new pipe organs or golf club politics while boys like me tell tales of tattoos and riots bullets shattering Sunday mornings cells and sentences I thought only existed in films
make me nameless reward some lost soul with this life so they do not wander streets count in years the absence of children's visits or leave unlived the rights that parchment offers
let me lease my days so that boys who could be me can make redemption more than a word father more than an abstraction family more than an anachronism
I found a collection of old poems floating in e-mail limbo. The poem was written Sept. 5, 2008.
Cut out my heart and leave it in a gin and tonic on top of a Dave Matthews Band CD
This is beauty, the way skin bounces off clouds shouted to a thickened sky of a heaven too tired to listen and I feel a step closer to god when i contemplate our creation
you know we were made in the image of a drunk deity who didn't know her/is right from her/is left tried to shorten our days with death and plague but we kept coming back till s/he woke in a hangover and realized what s/he'd done was a little ... um ... crazy at the time a little short on the why’s and how’s of how we came to be left us between two dead soldiers of Sam Adams Light on her/is best friend's neighbor's kitchen counter 'cause s/he was watching her/is figure tries to hide her/is face in the bar when we come staggering through, asking to use the phone. and begging the bartender to serve us the wine of the vine that softened Judas' loyalty then asking the gravedigger to bury us close enough to count raindrops of the days till judgment when pulled from the soil like treasure we can recall our days before it all went downhill and convince the final judge that we're worth sparing worth including in the finality then sing a song soft enough to make the towers crumbles, tarnish those pearly gates and force the whole mess to come crashing down when heaven falls the boom will resound through history in our heartbeats, and the echoes will come 72 per minute there, put your hand on your sternum can you feel the echo in your chest? the end has already happened now we're just words arching toward that final "the end" before the acknowledgments, index, and afterward from the publisher, characters on a page. and tonight, I glimpse the reader's eyes
Maple Dewleaf, of Flagstaff, 24.5, (2:51) N. Miouo Nance, of Phoenix, 24.7, (3:02) Russ Kazmierczak, of Tempe, 28.1, (2:04) Lauren Perry, of Mesa, 26.5, 26.0 after 0.5 time penalty, (3:12) David Tabor, of Mesa, 27.0, 24.5 after 2.5 time penalty, (3:55) Joe Griffin, of Flagstaff, 22.6, (1:17) Danielle Silver, of Sedona, 26.3, (2:12) Mikel Weisser, of Kingman, 27.1, (3:02) Ron Lemco, of Sedona, 26.9, (1:31) Bert Cisneros, the elder poet, of Cottonwood, 26.8, (2:22) The Klute, of Mesa, 28.7, (3:05) Tristan Marshell, of Mesa, 28.7, (2:58)
Teaser poem by feature poet Brit Shostak Host: Christopher Fox Graham of Sedona, "Orion"
Round 2 Reverse Order
Tristan Marshell, 27.7, (3:00), 55.5 The Klute, 29.6, (3:04), 58.3 Bert Cisneros, the elder poet, 26.5, (2:14), 53.3 Ron Lemco, 26.7, (1:10), 53.6 Mikel Weisser, 27.0, (2:28), 54.1 Danielle Silver, 27.8, (2:50), 54.1 Joe Griffin, 26.9, (1:24), 49.5 David Tabor, 28.9, (2:35), 53.4 Lauren Perry, 28.6, (2:55), 54.6 Russ Kazmierczak, 29.6, (2:06), 57.7 N. Miouo Nance, 27.0, (1:54), 51.7 Maple Dewleaf, 28.3, (2:12), 52.8
Feature Poet
Brit Shostak is in a constant battle for balance. She spends most days trying to read as much as she writes, be as creative as the things that inspire her, and love as much as she is loved.
She is a life-long four-eyes, who sings in the shower and tries to listen as much as she speaks.
She still prefers typing most things on her 1957 Underwood typewriter.
When she was just a tot she had to get stitches in her eyebrow after running into a bookcase at the library. Legend says that something from that event stuck.
After writing for what seems like as long as she could hold a pencil she has published two chapbooks, “Kissing Lightning Bolts” (2009) and “Lessons in Calamity” (210).
She has just released her first CD, “Thieving the Midnight Oil.”
Although Shostak enjoys the competitive thrill of slams she is actively pursuing a degree in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry and finds the page just as if not more important than performance.
Shostak was the 2009 Mesa representative at the Individual World Poetry Slam and a member of the 2009 and 2010 Mesa National Slam Poetry teams.
She has also had the extreme pleasure of reading in front of poetry legends Sonia Sanchez, poetry slam creator Marc Kelly Smith and S.A. Griffin.
After spending the last decade in the desert she is headed to the Pacific Northwest in search of adventure, good coffee, and the perfect tree to read a book beneath.
Shostak is a dandelion seed looking for a place to plant herself. She does most of her deeds in watermelon sugar.
Sorbet: Gary Every of Sedona
Round 3 High to Low
The Klute, 29.5, 29.0 after 0.5 time penalty, (3:11), 87.3 Russ Kazmierczak, 29.7, (1:54), 87.4 Tristan Marshell, 29.1, (2:50), 84.6 Lauren Perry, 28.9, 28.4 after 0.5 time penalty (3:13), 83.0 Danielle Silver, 27.7, (2:22), 81.8 Mikel Weisser, 28.3, (2:19), 82.4 Ron Lemco, 28.6, (2:32), 82.2 David Tabor, 30.0*, (2:40), 83.4. *Four 10s Bert Cisneros, the elder poet, 28.8, (1:58), 82.1 Maple Dewleaf, 27.9, (1:52), 80.7 N. Miouo, Nance, 28.1, (2:16), 79.8 Joe Griffin, 28.3, (1:07), 77.8
Final scores 1st: Russ Kazmierczak, 87.4, $100
2nd: The Klute, 87.3
3rd: Tristan Marshell, 84.6
David Tabor, 83.4 Lauren Perry, 83.0 Mikel Weisser, 82.4 Ron Lemco, 82.2 Bert Cisneros, the elder poet, 82.1 Danielle Silver, 81.8 Maple Dewleaf, 80.7 N. Miouo Nance, 79.8 Joe Griffin, 77.8
Slam staff
Scorekeeper and Timekeeper: Sarah Lepich Host: Christopher Fox Graham Organizers: Studio Live Christopher Fox Graham, Sedona 510 Poetry
Next Sedona Poetry Slam: Saturday, Dec. 11, 2010, Studio Live, Sedona, Arizona, 7:30 p.m., featuring Mesa's Brit Shostak.
Seven Years of Solitude First published Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009, 9 a.m.
Seven years of solitude one-night stands and last names lost to the wind I wrote them in chronological order carved their names in the sand rewrote our mythologies into my own fictions to win 10s from strangers who preferred verses rather than the cut and dry facts of thrusting hips and white lies to strip cotton from our skins before clothing ourselves in dawn-lit shame of till-we-meet-agains
I found her literally in my own back yard spreading dandelions along her path on highways and backcountry roads from the tundra to Sonora fallen into disuse by travelers — save Kerouac scholars
she called herself a hobo, always homeward bound but yet to find a doorstep to call her own she came to kiss the red from the rocks paint her lips with this Martian dust swirl pirouettes in the vortices verify that stars here match home and chase down crash-landed aliens looking for a one-way trip home to Perseus
she broke me open like an egg scrambled my contents with her garlic smile smothered in maple leaf syrup and salted to taste
she coaxed herself inside to better hear the word by smiths more crafted than me pressed skin to skin and melted my insides into cheddar smothered the sheets in her unrepentant smiles
she is joy unpasteurized, caffeine-free, antioxidant-rich joy if it could drip from its source sculpt itself into flesh and skin and bones camber its soft exterior into curves tender to trepid fingertips hesitant to brush capsulated ebullience lest it evanesce into vapor like the morning fog she zipped herself up behind a smile radiant as auroras to stay warm in the Yukon
we knew from the first kiss the impending expiration date I could only hold her so long before wanderlust reignited her blood pumped visions of highway sunsets into her aorta pulled her sticky sunrise from my bed I held tightly to dreams that I would foresee us waking unshared unemptied in the decades to come but behind shuttered eyes one loses the path of footsteps roads meander as they must not as we desire and mountains have yet to yield to men
we were doomed to end from the first morning we shared
each time we pressed hips and lips
I tried to capture the details with scientific precision to reconstruct the crime scene of her illegal emigration from the homeland I built
she could have packed and parted a thousand times without a second thought or smile in a stranger's rearview after her outstretched thumb purchased passage yet I found her bedecked in my socks or shirts or shorts and boxers after a time
I would have shed my skin to keep her warm if it would have delayed her departure a few hours more
she left me thrice: to smell the stories wafting on Diné desert see tors resistant to harassing winds — play in a park where symbols of peace were even written on the stones — pioneer the plateau seared asunder by patient waters that still run wild too oblivious to laugh at our cages knowing that they too will one day fall Ozymandias could not conquer the sands Hoover cannot break the canyon's will though the crest once offered us a view down to the moonlit sea all endeavors come to an end despite the glory of their lofty dedications
each time, the gravity of our weight pulled orbits back to the same ellipse we shared atmospheres and now with her light years across the plain it's harder to breathe the air before I knew her grace
in the winter nights with the rest of the house bursting with life lovers pressing tender touches uncaring of audiences friends rehashing old wounds reopened musicians repeating tunes remembered by fingertips alone I long for her pride I languish for the smell of her with days trapped in hair I yearn for the exhilaration of her tender brilliance dropping falling stars into my exosphere to scar the surface leaving us again in the naked ecstasy when the world faded away leaving us alone with our uninhibited vices
the nights seem colder and my limbs never warm enough to sleep through the night awake with dreams unremembered each one leaves a passport of her absence the way she alone could seem to fill the bed with her laughter as I left her in the mornings
our last day remains wickedly vivid how I longed to break my fingers and toes to render my hands unable to labor feet unable to leave her knowing that as the door closed when I next returned she'd not greet me with outstretched arms and leopardic leaps to pin me beneath her passions
I couldn’t have loved her better goodbye was always on our lips but when the last one came it broke me down the middle
in the center of my city tourists who came for millennial stones unbroken saw us cleave together our last moments and for the first time, she shed tears broke open her dam to cleave the street beneath us in two in a way only the canyons know the red rocks above trembled in dread conjuring that winds and creeks had taken their toll but she, unleashed, could finally break them into red sand washing them like blood into the seas
there, at a crossroads I could recreate from memory she said I would not cross the road with her I was unable to follow could not take her trek homeward bound because I had never been she carried my heart across the asphalt lanes tied up in her pack beneath snacks for the road betwixt books and rolled socks she carried it in secret which I knew as she walked away from me along a stretch of road that seemed to widen for miles until I lost her behind what could have been her next ride or mere passersby stained with her goodbyes I watched until she was vapor and wind red hat and pack and then a mirage as if she never was but the hollow in my chest beat her empty echoes with thumps in rhythm to her wandering footsteps I send out platoons of foxes to find her seek her out even in cities unknown to their habits hoping their spying slyness can catch her eye
now I seek out hitchhikers the way addicts itch for a fix I want to ask if they've seen her if I can glean some knowledge of her whereabouts and if they haven't yet if they would pass on a message in my absence:
when the first winter breeze blows in from the north I will strip naked wherever I am in the midst of Times Square, the hollow of empty woods or in my own living room let her cold kisses caress all my sharp curves feel her twirl around all my edges inhale her joy so deeply the atmosphere in my lungs turn to ice all my pores will rise into goosebumps to return her ten-thousand kisses send all my silent words northward to find her along whatever road she finds herself wrap the embrace of breath around her so she feels my arms again even if just once more even if just in dreams even if she never knows
Somewhere Between Midnights and the Dawn First published Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010, 1:55 a.m.
Somewhere between midnights and the dawn, in the shadows of dreams old lovers slink into the caverns of my mind for one-way trips through memories reminding skin of its old acrobatics through daylight repetitions they come as if to see a dying friend say final words, then bid adieu and slip out before sunrise
after their emigrations but before daybreak shutters open my eyes I find you there, pressing palms to palms as if you had always remained alongside watching like an unnoticed scarf keeping warm my throat to speak words only you and I know in secret from then until dawn I find you have taken all the heroines' places usurped the leads' roles as if they were your prequels just understudies filling seats while waiting for the star player who was stuck in traffic
there, behind corneas, in the cathedral concavity we rise upon the stage to play parts in the fictions that dreams explore your embrace is no longer forgotten but repeated karmically as I slouch toward a nirvana that will wake me at dawn to the world of ice and steel and lies with you, I would rather repeat my sins indefinitely curse off enlightenment for a Bodhisattva stay entranced for years horizontal and convalescent ignoring flesh for ether in a place where our bodies still match puzzle-perfectly where the world is beholden to dreamers' whims and your departure is remembered only as theory I would stay unconscious beneath covers until starvation or paramedics would extricate me but the day is a persistent kidnapper pulling me too soon from the visions of you
with our distance, you are a disembodied voice sound waves from a pocket toy that rings to declare your impending, leaving me afterward with the longing to disassemble your components into 1s and 0s, transmit you through fiber optics and stationary satellites and reform you in my living room,
but when the midnights come and I climb beneath satin sheets only brevity and steady breathing hinder your return there, where all the best parts of me try to remember all the parts of you, you return unbroken, renewed to bring me back to you, the embodiment of joy who once wore a girl's skin and shared my arms
when all the world is only imaginary I yearn for the moments I still have there ache to make the dreams last longer each time to keep your absence from its profound loneliness when dawn wakes me to your vacancy but the night offers another chance even if only in my own fictions to bring you back where you belong
The Sedona Poetry Slam hits the stage at Studio Live at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 11, presenting three rounds of poetic competition as poets battle for pride and $100.
Between rounds, the audience will be entertained with a feature performance by Brit Shostak, a two-time Mesa National Poetry Slam Team poet and Individual World Poetry Slam competitor.
Feature poet Brit Shostak
Shostak is in a constant battle for balance. She spends most days trying to read as much as she writes, be as creative as the things that inspire her, and love as much as she is loved.
She is a life-long four-eyes, who sings in the shower and tries to listen as much as she speaks.
She still prefers typing most things on her 1957 Underwood typewriter.
When she was just a tot she had to get stitches in her eyebrow after running into a bookcase at the library. Legend says that something from that event stuck.
After writing for what seems like as long as she could hold a pencil she has published two chapbooks, “Kissing Lightning Bolts” (2009) and “Lessons in Calamity” (210).
She has just released her first CD, “Thieving the Midnight Oil.”
Although Shostak enjoys the competitive thrill of slams she is actively pursuing a degree in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry and finds the page just as if not more important than performance.
Shostak was the 2009 Mesa representative at the Individual World Poetry Slam and a member of the 2009 and 2010 Mesa National Slam Poetry teams.
She has also had the extreme pleasure of reading in front of poetry legends Sonia Sanchez, poetry slam creator Marc Kelly Smith and S.A. Griffin.
After spending the last decade in the desert she is headed to the Pacific Northwest in search of adventure, good coffee, and the perfect tree to read a book beneath.
Shostak is a dandelion seed looking for a place to plant herself. She does most of her deeds in watermelon sugar.
Want to slam?
All poets are welcome to compete in the slam.
Slammers will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted.
The poets will be judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam. The top poet at the end of the night wins $100.
Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive.
Founded in Chicago by construction worker and poet Smith in 1984, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport. Poetry slam has become an international artistic sport, with more than 100 major poetry slams in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe.
Your host, Christopher Fox Graham
The slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on the Flagstaff team at five National Poetry Slams between 2001 and 2010.
He has hosted and competed in poetry slams and open mics in Sedona since 2004. Graham is a member of the Sedona Performers Guild, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit alliance of musicians, performers and performance poets that runs the 100-seat Studio Live performance space in West Sedona.
Graham founded the bimonthly Sedona Poetry Slam in 2008, bringing in feature poets from around Arizona and the United States.
Graham has performed in 40 states, Toronto, Dublin, Ireland, and London, and wrote the now infamous “Peach” poem.
Get tickets
For more information or to register, call Graham at (928) 517-1400 or e-mail to foxthepoet@yahoo.com.
Tickets are $5 online if ordered by Dec. 10, or $10 at the door.
Home of the Sedona Performers Guild nonprofit, Studio Live is located at 215 Coffee Pot Drive, West Sedona. For more information, visit www.studiolivesedona.com.
Studio Live is located in West Sedona, off Coffee Pot Drive, just north of Bashas' plaza and Oak Creek Brewing Co.
Lexington, Bull Run and Live on CNN By Christopher Fox Graham
America, the absent-minded lover who forgets your name in the ambivalence of night doubts the pressure pressed gently to it yesterday was worth remembering today America, you drunk rapist of suburban children seeking to know your currents pull themselves higher to see the view know the far side of your hulk
you, America, show shadows of past days bring down the cultural acme to a level you can conduct with a symphony of fools playing off and out of meter you, America, want us to love you and your ideals that you stopped practicing long before most of us came here, you want us to love you the way you were and ignore the bombs of contempt and leaflets dropped on Americans who just haven't moved here yet
you, America with your blind eyes and traffic stops with your breathalyzers of dissidents shatter our hopes with your material wealth and the need to make more
you draw in our children with your Technicolor dreamscapes teach them that 2-D television love lives can fill the void we feel by not reaching out to feel our neighbors hands call 9-1-1 instead of showing up to speak some next-door words
you, America, that forbids our secret pleasures from leaving us happy for a night let us damn ourselves if you believe in the freedom with which our ancestors built you let go of wrists because these nations' hands have empires to wreck and men to free we have lovers to swoon and stars to call our own without the cataloging of spheres of gases
we have dreams of starlight to worship lovers beneath without the fist fall of your suspicions let us alone, America, you redneck whore, you control freak with good intentions our way to hell is paved with your statutes that enforce the will of do-nothing meat puppets instead of letting the artists live for art's sake and drag the moonlight out into day name the blind sun with our own tongue and kiss the clouds into tomorrow
you, America, the destroyer of worlds the doom of dreams leaving broken roads not taken through yellow woods unseen bought with slaves wages
we will resist you cap your mountains with our footfalls bring down the gates of mud and bury them for peach tree orchards
you, America, may doom us one by one but the enumeration of our mysteries will hopscotch through our daughters' minds raise the sons to raise the armies to resist you tear down the towers overlooking our prison camp daymares America, we love you but you do very bad things no man or thing is evil but actions may be and sometimes crimes deserve just punishment when too many have been broken
we, America, your sons and daughters, lay broken but we won't here long soon we'll rise it will only take a moment when one swift kick in the ribs proves one too many and we retake our place and the bearers of freedom the entrepreneurs of artistry one more artist with shotgun dentistry one more ghetto enclave to genocide the unwanted one unlucky fuck who gets too close to the riot line and takes a round on live network daytime TV one martyr who didn't want to be to raise the call in us get us to pull each other up by the bootstraps and bring down the highjackers of our grand experiment and make you remember that you are ours we are not yours
you, America, you were a republic once and a republic can last forever, but empires, all empires must one day fall
I wrote and performed this poem tonight for the Sedona Visual Artists Coalition's "PATHWAYS...A Visual Journey" show in the Tlaquepaque Sala de la Milagro ballroom.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
We parted ways in that yellow wood split at the fork to wander onward I, the grassy one who wanted wear my partner, the one bent below the undergrowth where I could not go
the traveler stood between us weighing our claims for his future looking down us both as far as he could as if the first footfalls hence could reveal our destinations
Others had stood here on other mornings longingly stretched their dreams down us then trodden black the fallen leaves and none had ever come back to retry the other road
the traveler chose a route, and made his way down his road where he wound up, I cannot say I am just the road in a yellow wood the difference was his to make
I wrote and performed this poem tonight for the Sedona Visual Artists Coalition's "PATHWAYS...A Visual Journey" show in the Tlaquepaque Sala de la Milagro ballroom.
MapQuest the miles in the sky it's easier to find you that way than to traipse the hills between us
begin at Betelgeuse, the moment we met you, smiling as a stranger yet to know me me, tripping over words until I learn the rhythm to match you we trace the lines the midnights you teach me the art of touch the mathematics of how to hold you wrap starstrings of limbs to encase you and become a hammock for your dreams
I first kiss you near the lips of Meissa taste the words camping in your backyard tongue bring them inside mine swirl them around until they lost track of their speaker and became one breath
on the edge of Belatrix we start our roadtrips showing you all the places I loved atlasing each one in sequence into new memories snapping photographs for future shoeboxes and Facebook updates
the fights erupt near Mintaka parry, thrust, riposte, we practice the arts of combat study the hows and ways of pushing each other you always win the battles, even if you don’t believe me
near Alnilam, you proffer forgiveness and I discover how to say "sorry" without losing face on the brink of the Horsehead Nebula I dive into all your stories bleed out all of mine let you examine all my sins with the enthusiasm of a hell-bent prosecutor working an open-and-shut case but on the executioner's block before the guillotine blade drops the electric chair switch makes contact or the Sodium Pentothal entered the vein the pardon comes and into my arms you sweep like a storm tsunaming my defenses to wreckage and calling me back to bed
we swim to the Orion Nebula lovers in the surf of a black and white movie drenched in the waves as if to tell Nature and the gods, "your eternity will not outlast us" "our kisses will still come ferociously long after this sand is washed away to bedrock and the waves have evaporated in the heat of a dying sun" "Your mighty Olympus will fall into Eden's vacant valleys before we yield to your earthquakes shrug off lightning bolts and burning bushes" "our pulses will be the last thing the universe will hear before entropy turns all the matters into orphaned atoms finding lonely refuge in the dark"
we lost ourselves in those nebulas swallowing stardust to give birth to new suns we seemed to live there for eons of mortal time just black sheets, bare skin, whispered poems smiles and slumber
but in the bliss, we drift just past Alniltak, and differences became too much too bear so we kiss for last time make love for the last time said our last words as lovers and go our own way
You sail on to Saiph, I go home to Rigel leaving phone numbers scarred on each other's aorta mine still beats out the ten digits daily when the moment feels right and in the time it takes to draw a line between them with the tip of finger remembering the sequence we fold space like bedsheets in the blink of eye so two points become one
and we cross the thousands of light years become lovers again, drunk instead on words remember the old times, the joys in Orion and Horsehead, the battles of Alniltak, Alnilam and Mentaka the road routes to Belatrix the kiss of Meissa and the first hello in the orbit of Betelgeuse but when the phone clicks off and the points unfold, you shine in Saiph and I glow bright above Rigel so we can see each other
and if on some little world called Earth where two lovers like us gaze up and see us shining on the same night and wonder so be it navigate by us if you will send wishes heavenward if you think it'll do any good but know we don't glimmer for you we, instead, burn brilliant so the other can see us and know that despite it all love travels faster than light and our story is wide as a constellation
I wrote and performed this poem tonight for the Sedona Visual Artists Coalition's "PATHWAYS...A Visual Journey" show in the Tlaquepaque Sala de la Milagro ballroom.
