Verbal Kensington wins the third Sedona Poetry Slam of 2014

Round 1
Poet	Score	Time	Penalty	Net Score
The Klute	23.4	2:46	0.0	23.4
Evan Dissinger	23.5	2:50	0.0	23.5
Molly Shaheen	24.2	2:44	0.0	24.2
Lauren Remy	21.8	2:07	0.0	21.8
Jesus	26.9	2:03	0.0	26.9
Kaylan	24.8	2:54	0.0	24.8
James Gould	23.1	2:14	0.0	23.1
Verbal Kensington	29.5	2:36	0.0	29.5
Claire Pearson	26.8	2:30	0.0	26.8
Round 2
Poet	Score	Time	Penalty	Net Score
Claire Pearson	27.4	2:25	0.0	27.4
Verbal Kensington	29.1	3:15	-0.5	28.6
James Gould	26.0	2:14	0.0	26.0
Kaylan	22.5	3:01	0.0	22.5
Jesus	25.3	2:01	0.0	25.3
Lauren Remy	24.4	2:38	0.0	24.4
Molly Shaheen	26.2	1:43	0.0	26.2
Evan Dissinger	28.2	2:50	0.0	28.2
The Klute	26.2	3:13	-0.5	25.7
Round 3
Poet	Score	Time	Penalty	Net Score
Verbal Kensington	29.5	3:14	-0.5	29.0
Claire Pearson	26.8	2:14	0.0	26.8
Jesus	27.4	2:31	0.0	27.4
Evan Dissinger	28.0	2:33	0.0	28.0
Molly Shaheen	27.9	1:40	0.0	27.9
Final
Poet	Score
Verbal Kensington	87.1
Claire Pearson	81.0
Evan Dissinger	79.7
Jesus	79.6
Molly Shaheen	78.3
James Gould	49.1
The Klute	49.1
Kaylan	47.3
Lauren Remy	46.2

Poet Zachary Kluckman features at the third Sedona Poetry Slam on March 8

Poet Zachary Kluckman features at the third Sedona Poetry Slam of 2014, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m. On Saturday, March 8, at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre, 2030 W. State Route 89A, Suite A-3.

Zachary Kluckman

A performance poet since 2006, Kluckman is a two-time member of the Albuquerque, N.M., national poetry slam team, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and recipient of the Red Mountain Press National Poetry Prize.

When he is not amusing himself trying to untangle string cheese, Kluckman publishes poetry in anthologies and publications like the New York Quarterly, Cutthroat and Red Fez. Featured on more than 500 radio stations, with appearances on many of the nation's most notorious stages, he is an accomplished spoken word artist, as well as the Spoken Word Editor for the Pedestal. An activist, youth advocate and organizer, he has been recognized twice for making world history as the creator of the world's only Slam Poet Laureate Program and an organizer for the 100 Thousand Poets for Change program, the largest poetry reading in history.

As a youth advocate, Kluckman donates hundreds of hours a year to working with and empowering the youth. His first full-length collection, "Animals in Our Flesh," has received warm reviews from Jimmy Santiago Baca among others and his second collection, "Some of it is Muscle" has just been released by Swimming with Elephants Publications.

All poets are welcome to compete for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize. The prize is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporter Jeanne Freeland.

The slam is the third the 2014 season, which will culminate in selection of Sedona's third National Poetry Slam Team, the foursome and alternate who will represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Oakland, Calif., in August.

Future slams take place Saturday, March 29, Saturday, April 26, and Saturday, May 17. The final Grand Poetry Slam takes place Saturday, June 7, to determine the team.

Slam poets will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted.

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 their audience with their creativity.

The poets will be judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam.

Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive.

The local poets will share the stage with 300 of the top poets in the United States, Canada and Europe, pouring out their words in a weeklong explosion of expression. Sedona sent its five-poet first team to the 2012 National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., and its second to the 2013 NPS in Boston and Cambridge, Mass.

The slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on seven FlagSlam National Poetry Slams in 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2012 and 2013. Graham has hosted the Sedona Poetry Slam since 2009.

Tickets are $12.

Contact Graham at foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up to slam.

What is Poetry Slam?

Founded in Chicago in 1984 by construction worker Marc Smith, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport. 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.

Sedona on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"

Sedona made it on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Wednesday, Feb. 26.
... While Stewart was slamming Arizona about SB 1062 ... but hey, we got on TV.

Danny Strack and Ruff Draft feature at FlagSlam on Wednesday, Feb. 12

Danny Strack:

Danny Strack has won individual and group slam championships at the national, regional and city levels.

Most recently, Danny was a member of the 2012 Austin Neo-Soul team, which won the National Group Poem finals.

He's the current Slammaster and executive director of the Austin Poetry Slam, and has written 10 books of poetry and two full length plays, both of which were presented in 2012 and 2013 by Austin's Sky Candy Aerial Circus Arts Collective.

Danny is also a juggler with Sky Candy, likes balloons, walking, and is happy to be alive.

Ruff Draft:

Thomas, son of Stephen, son of Richard, son of Stephen, son of George, son of Henry, son of William, grew up in Rhode Island. Ruff attended his first slam in 2000 in Burlington, Vt., and it changed his life.

From these humble beginnings, Ruff went on to become a member of the PDX 2003 National Slam.

Ten years ago, he was inspired to move to Austin by the APS Team's final's stage performance at NPS 2003 in Chicago.

He became a beloved poet and host at the Austin Poetry Slam, and now he's moving back to PDX after 10 years.

Josh Wiss wins the second Sedona Poetry Slam of 2014

Round 1
Poet	Score	Time	Penalty	Net Score
Spencer Troth	15.0	3:37	-1.5	13.5
Emily Aitken	16.7	1:08	0.0	16.7
Ella Featherstone	20.2	1:02	0.0	20.2
Claire Pearson	24.4	2:21	0.0	24.4
James Gould	23.4	2:42	0.0	23.4
Josh Wish	25.7	2:30	0.0	25.7
Ryan Smalley	20.6	2:23	0.0	20.6
Lauren Remy	24.5	3:05	0.0	24.5
Evan Dissinger	23.8	2:54	0.0	23.8
Verbal Kensington	26.9	2:41	0.0	26.9
Stoney	18.8	7:26	-13.0	5.8
Round 2
Poet	Score	Time	Penalty	Net Score
Stoney	19.0	4:06	-3.0	16.0
Verbal Kensington	26.7	3:00	0.0	26.7
Evan Dissinger	27.1	3:15	-0.5	26.6
Lauren Remy	25.6	2:04	0.0	25.6
Ryan Smalley	23.3	1:56	0.0	23.3
Josh Wish	27.7	2:05	0.0	27.7
James Gould	26.4	2:12	0.0	26.4
Claire Pearson	25.4	2:34	0.0	25.4
Ella Featherstone	26.2	2:19	0.0	26.2
Emily Aitken	22.1	1:10	0.0	22.1
Spencer Troth	23.5	3:22	-1.0	22.5
Round 3
Poet	Score	Time	Penalty	Net Score
Verbal Kensington	27.5	3:08	0.0	27.5
Josh Wish	28.4	2:10	0.0	28.4
Evan Dissinger	27.1	2:11	0.0	27.1
Lauren Remy	27.8	2:27	0.0	27.8
Claire Pearson	27.4	2:24	0.0	27.4
James Gould	26.0	2:40	0.0	26.0
Final
Poet	Score
Josh Wish	81.8
Verbal Kensington	81.1
Lauren	77.9
Evan Dissinger	77.5
Claire Pearson	77.2
James Gould	75.8
Ella Featherstone	46.4
Ryan Smalley	43.9
Emily	38.8
Spencer Troth	36.0
Stoney	21.8

The Klute wins the first Sedona Poetry Slam of 2014

Round 1
Poet	Score	Time	Penalty	Net Score
Ryan Smalley	21.5	2:44	0.0	21.5
Evan Dissinger	24.5	2:48	0.0	24.5
Taylor Hayes	20.6	2:08	0.0	20.6
Tara Aitken	20.2	3:08	0.0	20.2
Claire Pearson	24.4	2:27	0.0	24.4
Josh Wiss	26.1	2:25	0.0	26.1
Spencer	24.2	2:22	0.0	24.2
Joy Young	27.8	2:21	0.0	27.8
Ella Featherstone	22.9	1:20	0.0	22.9
Anthony Johnson	29.4	2:15	0.0	29.4
Kimber	21.5	2:46	0.0	21.5
Klute	28.8	2:26	0.0	28.8
James	27.3	2:40	0.0	27.3
Mikel	23.6	2:46	0.0	23.6
Lauren Perry	25.4	2:23	0.0	25.4
Jackson	27.9	2:39	0.0	27.9
Lauren Remy	26.8	2:13	0.0	26.8
Valence	27.8	2:53	0.0	27.8
Round 2
Poet	Score	Time	Penalty	Net Score
Valence	26.8	3:07	0.0	26.8
Lauren Remy	28.2	2:14	0.0	28.2
Jackson	28.0	2:43	0.0	28.0
Lauren Perry	27.1	2:53	0.0	27.1
Mikel	24.8	3:30	-1.5	23.3
James	24.9	2:21	0.0	24.9
Klute	29.4	3:13	-0.5	28.9
Kimber	24.3	1:11	0.0	24.3
Anthony Johnson	27.5	2:24	0.0	27.5
Ella Featherstone	26.8	1:07	0.0	26.8
Joy Young	25.9	1:21	0.0	25.9
Spencer	24.2	3:24	-1.0	23.2
Josh Wiss	28.4	2:51	0.0	28.4
Claire Pearson	28.3	2:45	0.0	28.3
Tara Aitken	27.1	1:07	0.0	27.1
Taylor Hayes	27.2	2:41	0.0	27.2
Evan Dissinger	28.5	2:16	0.0	28.5
Ryan Smalley	28.5	2:20	0.0	28.5
Round 3
Poet	Score	Time	Penalty	Net Score
Klute	29.0	2:46	0.0	29.0
Anthony Johnson	28.7	1:42	0.0	28.7
Jackson	29.9	2:53	0.0	29.9
Lauren Remy	29.5	2:43	0.0	29.5
Valence	29.1	2:40	0.0	29.1
Final
Poet	Score
Klute	86.7
Jackson	85.8
Anthony Johnson	85.6
Lauren Remy	84.5
Valence	83.7
Josh Wiss	54.5
Joy Young	53.7
Evan Dissinger	53.0
Claire Pearson	52.7
Lauren Perry	52.5
James	52.2
Ryan Smalley	50.0
Ella Featherstone	49.7
Taylor Hayes	47.8
Spencer	47.4
Tara Aitken	47.3
Mikel	46.9
Kimber	45.8

First Sedona Poetry Slam of 2014 is this Saturday, Jan. 11

The first Sedona Poetry Slam of 2014 kicks off at 7:30 p.m. On Saturday, Jan. 11, at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre, 2030 W. State Route 89A, Suite A-3.

All poets are welcome to compete for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize. The prize is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporter Jeanne Freeland.

The slam is the first the 2014 season, which will culminate in selection of Sedona's third National Poetry Slam Team, the foursome and alternate who will represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Oakland, Calif., in August.

Future slams take place:

• Saturday, Feb. 1
• Saturday, March 8
• Saturday, March 29
• Saturday, April 26
• Saturday, May 17
• The final Grand Poetry Slam takes place Saturday, June 7, to determine the team.

Slam poets will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted.

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 their audience with their creativity.

The poets will be judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam.

Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive.

The local poets will share the stage with 300 of the top poets in the United States, Canada and Europe, pouring out their words in a weeklong explosion of expression. Sedona sent its five-poet first team to the 2012 National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., and its second to the 2013 NPS in Boston and Cambridge, Mass.

The slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on seven FlagSlam National Poetry Slams in 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2012 and 2013. Graham has hosted the Sedona Poetry Slam since 2009.

Tickets are $12.

Contact Graham at foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up to slam.

What is Poetry Slam?

Founded in Chicago in 1984 by construction worker Marc Smith, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport. 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.

"Earthrise" taken 45 years ago

“Midgley” by Christopher Fox Graham

we met on a bridge outside town
one-time nearly neighbors
his story ended 200 feet below

we were introduced by a sheriff's deputy
who stood between us
making sure no secrets could pass
between two men in the dark

beneath us both
this bridge of steel of iron
was riveted by men who now
all lay under the dirt
or in cemetery urns
this bridge holds 80 years of stories secret

each rivet and bolt
tells a separate story:
a birth in a foundry
a journey to this place
a final, spasmodic twist into steel
they are buried under fingerprints
of dead men
still hear the echoing voices
from the last time they were touched
their function is not move
if they surrender their purpose
give up on existence
yield their life to hold this bridge
this roadway will crumble into the canyon
but we don't learn from them
how to hold on

for us, this man
and me beside him
we have no bridge to weld ourselves into
the will to move will robs us of reasons to hold fast
we forget we have whole cities who will mourn our absence

I contemplate this for us
because he longer can:
he is silence and weight
waiting for men to carry him
in a zippered bag

a few hours ago
he stood a few feet from here
leaned forward
and let the laws of gravity
judge his weight too heavy to fly

did the rivets in this bridge hear him cry out
did he ever utter a sound
as he jumped from the edge
fell past the steel bolts and iron bars
diving like the birds
did they cry out,
wait! stop!
we have seen how this ends!

the rivets tried to unbolt themselves
creak and bend the iron to reach out and catch him
but decades ago men's tools drove them deep into steel
and they cannot move
they cannot let go
or this bridge will fall
and they will have no purpose
5 feet, 10 feet, 20 feet, 40 feet, 80 feet, 160 feet

some watched him strike the rocks below
but most tried to avert their gaze
twist toward the sky and hope at the last moment
the earth would fall away
and catch him soft

but hours later, they watched in the same silence
as more men carried him a basket to where he last stood
where I had arrived to meet him

to me the journalist
to these men, rescuers turned pallbearers
he is a late-night call
a recovery, a press release, an obituary

but the rivets
the steel beneath us
can't forget him
they have nowhere to go
no new places or stories to replace these nights
he is with them
deeper than fingerprints
and with every passing car
this bridge shudders
wondering
who may be next

For the family of the man whose body was recovered Oct. 9, 2013.

The "Pale Blue Dot," by Carl Sagan

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different.

The "Pale Blue Dot," taken Feb. 14, 1990

"Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Astronomer Carl Sagan

"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

"The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

Carl Sagan

"Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space"

1997 reprint, pp. xv–xvi

Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney has died

Digging
By Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb   

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   

Bends low, comes up twenty years away   

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

From the Poetry Foundation:
Seamus Heaney (April 13, 1939-Aug. 30, 2013) is widely recognized as one of the major poets of the 20th century. A native of Northern Ireland, Heaney was raised in County Derry, and later lived for many years in Dublin. He was the author of over 20 volumes of poetry and criticism, and edited several widely used anthologies. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past." Heaney taught at Harvard University (1985-2006) and served as the Oxford Professor of Poetry (1989-1994)

Heaney has attracted a readership on several continents and has won prestigious literary awards and honors, including the Nobel Prize. As Blake Morrison noted in his work Seamus Heaney, the author is "that rare thing, a poet rated highly by critics and academics yet popular with 'the common reader.'" Part of Heaney's popularity stems from his subject matter—modern Northern Ireland, its farms and cities beset with civil strife, its natural culture and language overrun by English rule. The New York Review of Books essayist Richard Murphy described Heaney as "the poet who has shown the finest art in presenting a coherent vision of Ireland, past and present." Heaney's poetry is known for its aural beauty and finely-wrought textures. Often described as a regional poet, he is also a traditionalist who deliberately gestures back towards the “pre-modern” worlds of William Wordsworth and John Clare.

Heaney was born and raised in Castledawson, County Derry, Northern Ireland. The impact of his surroundings and the details of his upbringing on his work are immense. As a Catholic in Protestant Northern Ireland, Heaney once described himself in the New York Times Book Review as someone who "emerged from a hidden, a buried life and entered the realm of education." Eventually studying English at Queen’s University, Heaney was especially moved by artists who created poetry out of their local and native backgrounds—authors such as Ted Hughes, Patrick Kavanagh, and Robert Frost. Recalling his time in Belfast, Heaney once noted: "I learned that my local County Derry [childhood] experience, which I had considered archaic and irrelevant to 'the modern world' was to be trusted. They taught me that trust and helped me to articulate it." Heaney’s work has always been most concerned with the past, even his earliest poems of the 1960s. According to Morrison, a "general spirit of reverence toward the past helped Heaney resolve some of his awkwardness about being a writer: he could serve his own community by preserving in literature its customs and crafts, yet simultaneously gain access to a larger community of letters." Indeed, Heaney's earliest poetry collections— Death of a Naturalist (1966) and Door into the Dark (1969)—evoke "a hard, mainly rural life with rare exactness," according to critic and Parnassus contributor Michael Wood. Using descriptions of rural laborers and their tasks and contemplations of natural phenomena—filtered through childhood and adulthood—Heaney "makes you see, hear, smell, taste this life, which in his words is not provincial, but parochial; provincialism hints at the minor or the mediocre, but all parishes, rural or urban, are equal as communities of the human spirit," noted Newsweek correspondent Jack Kroll.

As a poet from Northern Ireland, Heaney used his work to reflect upon the "Troubles," the often-violent political struggles that plagued the country during Heaney’s young adulthood. The poet sought to weave the ongoing Irish troubles into a broader historical frame embracing the general human situation in the books Wintering Out (1973) and North (1975). While some reviewers criticized Heaney for being an apologist and mythologizer, Morrison suggested that Heaney would never reduce political situations to false simple clarity, and never thought his role should be as a political spokesman. The author "has written poems directly about the Troubles as well as elegies for friends and acquaintances who have died in them; he has tried to discover a historical framework in which to interpret the current unrest; and he has taken on the mantle of public spokesman, someone looked to for comment and guidance," noted Morrison. "Yet he has also shown signs of deeply resenting this role, defending the right of poets to be private and apolitical, and questioning the extent to which poetry, however 'committed,' can influence the course of history." In the New Boston Review, Shaun O'Connell contended that even Heaney's most overtly political poems contain depths that subtly alter their meanings. "Those who see Seamus Heaney as a symbol of hope in a troubled land are not, of course, wrong to do so," O'Connell stated, "though they may be missing much of the undercutting complexities of his poetry, the backwash of ironies which make him as bleak as he is bright."

Heaney’s first foray into the world of translation began with the Irish lyric poem Buile Suibhne. The work concerns an ancient king who, cursed by the church, is transformed into a mad bird-man and forced to wander in the harsh and inhospitable countryside. Heaney's translation of the epic was published as Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish (1984). New York Times Book Review contributor Brendan Kennelly deemed the poem "a balanced statement about a tragically unbalanced mind. One feels that this balance, urbanely sustained, is the product of a long, imaginative bond between Mr. Heaney and Sweeney." This bond is extended into Heaney's 1984 volume Station Island, where a series of poems titled "Sweeney Redivivus" take up Sweeney's voice once more. The poems reflect one of the book’s larger themes, the connections between personal choices, dramas and losses and larger, more universal forces such as history and language. In The Haw Lantern (1987)Heaney extends many of these preoccupations. W.S. DiPiero described Heaney's focus: "Whatever the occasion—childhood, farm life, politics and culture in Northern Ireland, other poets past and present—Heaney strikes time and again at the taproot of language, examining its genetic structures, trying to discover how it has served, in all its changes, as a culture bearer, a world to contain imaginations, at once a rhetorical weapon and nutriment of spirit. He writes of these matters with rare discrimination and resourcefulness, and a winning impatience with received wisdom."

With the publication of Selected Poems, 1966-1987 (1990) Heaney marked the beginning of a new direction in his career. Poetry contributor William Logan commented of this new direction, "The younger Heaney wrote like a man possessed by demons, even when those demons were very literary demons; the older Heaney seems to wonder, bemusedly, what sort of demon he has become himself." In Seeing Things (1991) Heaney demonstrates even more clearly this shift in perspective. Jefferson Hunter, reviewing the book for the Virginia Quarterly Review, maintained that collection takes a more spiritual, less concrete approach. "Words like 'spirit' and 'pure'… have never figured largely in Heaney's poetry," Hunter explained. However, in Seeing Things Heaney uses such words to "create a new distanced perspective and indeed a new mood" in which "'things beyond measure' or 'things in the offing' or 'the longed-for' can sometimes be sensed, if never directly seen." The Spirit Level (1996) continues to explore humanism, politics and nature.

Always respectfully received, Heaney’s later work, including his second collected poems, Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996 (1998), has been lavishly praised. Reviewing Opened Ground for the New York Times Book Review, Edward Mendelson commented that the volume “eloquently confirms [Heaney’s] status as the most skillful and profound poet writing in English today." With Electric Light (2001), Heaney broadened his range of allusion and reference to Homer and Virgil, while continuing to make significant use of memory, elegy and the pastoral tradition. According to John Taylor in Poetry, Heaney "notably attempts, as an aging man, to re-experience childhood and early-adulthood perceptions in all their sensate fullness." Paul Mariani in America found Electric Light "a Janus-faced book, elegiac" and "heartbreaking even." Mariani noted in particular Heaney's frequent elegies to other poets and artists, and called Heaney "one of the handful writing today who has mastered that form as well."

Heaney’s next volume District and Circle (2006) won the T.S. Eliot Prize, the most prestigious poetry award in the UK. Commenting on the volume for the New York Times, critic Brad Leithauser found it remarkably consistent with the rest of Heaney’s oeuvre. But while Heaney’s career may demonstrate an “of-a-pieceness” not common in poetry, Leithauser found that Heaney’s voice still “carries the authenticity and believability of the plainspoken—even though (herein his magic) his words are anything but plainspoken. His stanzas are dense echo chambers of contending nuances and ricocheting sounds. And his is the gift of saying something extraordinary while, line by line, conveying a sense that this is something an ordinary person might actually say.”

Heaney’s prose constitutes an important part of his work. Heaney often used prose to address concerns taken up obliquely in his poetry. In The Redress of Poetry (1995), according to James Longenbach in the Nation, "Heaney wants to think of poetry not only as something that intervenes in the world, redressing or correcting imbalances, but also as something that must be redressed—re-established, celebrated as itself." The book contains a selection of lectures the poet delivered at Oxford University as Professor of Poetry. Heaney's Finders Keepers: Selected Prose, 1971-2001 (2002) earned the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism, the largest annual prize for literary criticism in the English language. John Carey in the London Sunday Times proposed that Heaney's "is not just another book of literary criticism…It is a record of Seamus Heaney's thirty-year struggle with the demon of doubt. The questions that afflict him are basic. What is the good of poetry? How can it contribute to society? Is it worth the dedication it demands?" Heaney himself described his essays as "testimonies to the fact that poets themselves are finders and keepers, that their vocation is to look after art and life by being discoverers and custodians of the unlooked for."

As a translator, Heaney’s most famous work is the translation of the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf (2000). Considered groundbreaking because of the freedom he took in using modern language, the book is largely credited with revitalizing what had become something of a tired chestnut in the literary world. Malcolm Jones in Newsweek stated: "Heaney's own poetic vernacular—muscular language so rich with the tones and smell of earth that you almost expect to find a few crumbs of dirt clinging to his lines—is the perfect match for the Beowulf poet's Anglo-Saxon…As retooled by Heaney, Beowulf should easily be good for another millennium." Though he has also translated Sophocles, Heaney remains most adept with medieval works. He translated Robert Henryson’s Middle Scots classic and follow-up to Chaucer, The Testament of Cresseid and Seven Fables in 2009.

In 2009, Seamus Heaney turned 70. A true event in the poetry world, Ireland marked the occasion with a 12-hour broadcast of archived Heaney recordings. It was also announced that two-thirds of the poetry collections sold in the UK the previous year had been Heaney titles. Such popularity was almost unheard of in the world of contemporary poetry, and yet Heaney’s voice is unabashedly grounded in tradition. Heaney’s belief in the power of art and poetry, regardless of technological change or economic collapse, offers hope in the face of an increasingly uncertain future. Asked about the value of poetry in times of crisis, Heaney answered it is precisely at such moments that people realize they need more to live than economics: “If poetry and the arts do anything,” he said, “they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness."

Haikus from last night's FlagSlam

Erotic Geography Haiku

Mediterranean wet;
I call your thighs "Ceuta"
and "Gibralter"

Final Kiss Haiku
Only one of us
knew it was our last kiss
I gave you no warning

Higgs Boson Haiku
A Higgs boson walks
into a church, says, "I'm here
now you can have Mass"

Frustrated Nerd Haiku
R2D2 and
Daleks are from different
universes! Fuck, Mom!

Trespassers on the 7th Hole Haiku
Cop says, "This golf course
is not a park." No one thought
to tell the children

God's Hug Haiku
If there's a god,
his hug must be soft and squishy
John Q, are you ... god?

Statistical Probability Haiku
By December
three of you will have slept with John Q.
Who will it be?

Oblivious to Irony Haiku
Christian says
"That guy's trapped in a cult;"
I say, "you're trapped in irony"

Austin Reeves Needs a Steak Haiku
Sex with Austin
is like fucking tortilla chips:
salty, sharp, angles

I am the new managing editor of the Sedona Red Rock News, The Camp Verde Journal, and the Cottonwood Journal Extra

Larson Newspapers announces the promotion of News Editor Christopher Fox Graham to managing editor.

Photo by Saar Ingelbert

Graham first worked for Larson Newspapers as a copy editor from 2004 to 2008 and was named Editorial Person of the Year in 2004. During his tenure, he wrote more than 100 Sedona Underground columns featuring profiles of artists and performers around Sedona.

Graham returned as assistant news editor in October 2009. He was promoted to assistant managing editor in April 2010 and again promoted to news editor in April 2013 ....  Click here for the full story.

He can be contacted at editor@larsonnewspapers.com.