Utah Arts Festival Team Poetry Slam, part two

Nick Shifrar Team 801 Underground, the Salt Lake City pickup team

Dominique Christina Ashaheed and Ayinde Russell from Denver's Slam NUBA with a poem about the use of music in fighting South African Apartheid.

DeAnn Emett, from the Salt City Slam, performing a poem about a murdered friend that only escalated in intensity as the poem went on. By the end, I thought her passion would burst a an artery.

My Tombstone Poets Slam Team captain, Lauren Perry, closing up our rotation as the first poet of the final round. Aaron Johnson, The Klute and I, having all been team captains before, came to Salt Lake with Lauren so she could have a go at calling the rotations and work on her slam team strategizing.

Tara Brenner, from team Boise, proclaiming her love of vampires, the real kind of Count Dracula/Court Orlok-type seducers, not pansy-ass Edward "Twilight" Cullen "I mourn my lost humanity and don't want to ravish you" vampires.

 

Host Dave McKnight

Jesse Parent and Cody Winger, from Salt City Slam.

Poet from 801 Underground, the Salt Lake City pickup team

Brando Chemtrails from team Slam NUBA

Round 1

Salt City Slam, Salt Lake City: Gray Brian, 29.0
801 Underground, Salt Lake City: Adam Love and Nick Shifrar, 28.5
Slam NUBA, Denver:
Tombstone Poets, Phoenix: Aaron Johnson, "Lightning" 29.4
Boise, Idaho: Cheryl Maddalena, 29.8

Round 2

801 Underground, Salt Lake City: 27.8
Slam NUBA, Denver: Brando Chemtrails, Ayinde Russell, Dominique Christina Ashaheed, Theo Wilson and Jovan Mays, 29.4
Tombstone Poets, Phoenix: Christopher Fox Graham, "Spinal Language" 28.6
Boise, Idaho: Brenda Ray, 29.3
Salt City Slam, Salt Lake City: Jesse Parent, Cody Winger, DeAnn Emett and Gary Brian, "I Am Legion," 30.0

Round 3

Slam NUBA, Denver: Ayinde Russell and Dominique Christina Ashaheed, 29.9
Tombstone Poets, Phoenix: The Klute, Aaron Johnson (beatboxing), Christopher Fox Graham, "Hip-Hop Republican," 30.0
Boise, Idaho: Leah Cronen, 28.5
Salt City Slam, Salt Lake City: DeAnn Emett, 29.6
801 Underground, Salt Lake City: Nick Shifrar, 29.5

Round 4

Tombstone Poets, Phoenix: Lauren Perry, 28.4
Boise, Idaho: Tara Brenner, 29.9
Salt City Slam, Salt Lake City: Jesse Parent and Cody Winger, 29.5
801 Underground, Salt Lake City: 28.5
Slam NUBA, Denver: Brando Chemtrails, 30.0

Final Scores

Slam NUBA, Denver: 119.3

Salt City Slam, Salt Lake City: 118.1

Boise, Idaho: 117.5

Tombstone Poets, Phoenix: 116.4

801 Underground: 114.3

Utah Arts Festival Team Poetry Slam, part one

The old Utah State House where the 2011 Utah Arts Festival tooks place.

The Big Mouth Cafe slam stage.

Brian Frandsen, the calibration poet.

Dave McShield, the shirtless host.

Gray Brian with the first poem of the first round, a beautiful poem about reversing time. Set the stage for the whole rest of the slam.

Adam Love, left, and Nick Shifrar Team 801 Underground, the Salt Lake City pickup team.

Cheryl Maddalena with her "MILF" poem. She is a beautiful human being. It clearly says so on her left arm in 200pt Times New Roman.

Brenda Ray, team Boise

Salt City Slam performing Jesse Parent's "I Am Legion" poem about his mother's multiple personality discover. This is the piece that fucked my ears with its brilliance. The poets are Parent, left, Cody Winger, DeAnn Emett and Gary Brian.

Slam NUBA, featuring Brando Chemtrails, left, Ayinde Russell (behind Brando), Dominique Christina Ashaheed, Theo Wilson and Jovan Mays.

Leah Cronen from Team Boise

Utah Arts Festival Team Poetry Slam, pre-slam trip and preparation.

A prairie dog across the road from our motel in Parowan, Utah.

The creek across the road.

The Aladdin Theatre in Parowan, adjacent to the diner where we had breakfast.

The Klute, left, Lauren Perry and Aaron Johnson smoking a morning cigarette in front of a quaint house in Parowan.

A vintage mural advertisement Lauren found.

A 1941 Buick near the gas station in Cedar City.

Aaron in our swanky Marriott room, compliments of Jesse Parent and the Utah Arts Festival. Note the bottle of Jameson we bought before crossing the border into Utah.

The bathroom.

Welcome to Utah, here's your Book o' Mormon.

Enjoying the third story view overlooking downtown Salt Lake City.

The Utah Arts Festival Team Poetry Slam starts at the Big Mouth Cafe Stage in downtown Salt Lake City at 7:30 p.m.

Bunny ninjas theaten city - only tomorrow's Sedona Poetry Open Mic can save us

Sedona Poetry Open Mic – open mic poets needed

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.

Even amid a street riot, Canadians are irresistible

Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images

Australian Scott Jones kisses his Canadian girlfriend Alex Thomas after she was knocked to the ground last week by a police officer's riot shield in Vancouver, British Columbia. Canadians rioted after the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins.

Details of the Famous Vancouver Riot Kiss Photo Revealed

Couple claims the photo wasn't staged, and that the woman was knocked to the ground.

By Josh Voorhees, Slate.com
A Canadian newspaper has named the kissing couple caught on camera by photographers documenting Wednesday’s Vancouver riots, and detailed how the iconic embrace unfolded.
The Globe and Mail reports that the pair in question is an Australian, Scott Jones, and a Canadian, Alex Thomas, who have been dating for several months. Jones is said to be a 29-year-old aspiring stand-up comic and, according to the way his mother tells it, may just be the best boyfriend ever.
The photo of the couple, taken during the riot that began after the hometown Canucks lost game seven of the Stanley Cup, quickly became an Internet sensation and fueled speculation that the embrace was staged.
According to Jones’s mother, that wasn’t the case.
She tells the paper that the couple was at the game and got caught between police and rioters as they were leaving. Thomas was knocked to the ground by an officer’s riot shield, and Jones leapt to the ground after her to comfort her with a kiss.
“I just thought, yep, that would be Scott because he’s a bit of a dreamer and he wouldn’t have even known there was a riot going on around him, quite possibly,” Jones’s mother, Megan, said.
The story lines up with the photographer’s take on what happened. He said that he initially snapped the photo thinking it was of someone hurt. “I looked back and thought someone was injured and I shot that,” Rich Lam told msnbc.com. “I framed it up, juxtaposed with the policemen.”
It wasn’t until his editors were sorting through his digital images that anyone realized just how amazing of a shot it was.

Proof that Canadians are irresistible to the foreigners who love them.

Last call for discount tickets to June 11 poetry slam

Last call for $10 discount tickets to June 11 poetry slam:


Phoenix poet Shaikh Sammad headlines Sedona Poetry Slam

The Sedona Summer Poetry Slam will explode at Studio Live at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 11, presenting three rounds of poetic competition as poets battle for pride and $100.

Tickets are $10 at the door or $5 online if ordered by midnight, June 11.

Shaikh Sammad, of Phoneix, features
at the Sedona Poetry Slam on
Saturday, June 11.

Between rounds, the audience will be entertained with a feature performance by Shaikh Sammad.

Shaikh Sammad is a poet, actor, vocalist, performance artist and activist.

A native of Newark, N.J., Sammad now resides in Arizona where he divides his time between the Phoenix metro area and Cottonwood in the Verde Valley. An avid gardener, he spends the majority of his time developing community gardens to feed residents in low- to no-income areas.

Additionally he has taken on the role of Youth Arts Program director with the Tigermountain Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit agency which encourages urban farming as a means of community development. He believes strongly that all people should have access to affordable, nutritious, locally grown produce regardless of race, gender, age, class or income. The stage is a powerful place to begin the exchange of ideas, Shaikh stated.

Shaikh Sammad stated in a press release that he "looks forward to sharing his messages of love, faith and community as feature poet at the Sedona Slam on June 11, 2011."

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.

Poet Shaikh Sammad will rock Studio Live.

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.

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.

The slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham.

Graham has performed in 40 states, Toronto, Dublin, Ireland, and London, and wrote the now infamous “Peach” poem.

For more information or to register, call Graham at (928) 517-1400 or e-mail to foxthepoet@yahoo.com. See video from previous poetry slams at www.YouTube.com/FoxThePoet.

Founded in Chicago by construction worker and poet Marc “So What?” 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.

For more information about the worldwide phenomena of poetry slam, visit www.poetryslam.com and foxthepoet.blogspot.com.

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.