Today, Saturday, June 7, the best poets in Arizona will compete in the 2014
Sedona Poetry Grand Slam, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m. at the Mary D.
Fisher Theatre, 2030 W. State Route 89A, Suite A-3.
The
slam is the final the 2014 season, which culminates 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. Poets in the slam come from as far away as Phoenix and
Flagstaff, competing against adult poets from Sedona, college poets from
Northern Arizona University, and youth poets from Sedona Red Rock High
School's Young Voices Be Heard slam group.
Slam poetry
is an art form that allows written page poets to share their work
alongside theatrical performers, hip-hop artists and lyricists. While
many people may think of poetry as dull and laborious, a poetry slam is
like a series of high-energy, three-minute one-person plays.
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.
At
Nationals, the Sedona National Poetry Slam Team 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 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 12 top poets who will compete on June 7 include:
Maya Hall
Maya Hall is a triplet and a lover of life.
When
she isn't busy working on poetry she's studying for an art education
degree as well as gearing up for a masters in counseling.
She's
ready for the path that poetry is taking her and is up for anything in
this new, exciting chapter of her life and hoping to get her words out
to a larger audience.
Spencer Troth
Spencer Troth was born in the humble
town of Mesa, after it was no longer a humble town. He has lived across
the Phoenix Metro area, but has now learned to call Flagstaff his home.
Having just completed his degree in Political Science, Troth is a fresh
young adult looking to find his place in the world of politics, though
he has always kept a special place in his heart for poetry. As a poet,
Troth has competed in slams for about two years, garnering a place on
Sedona's national team in 2012 to compete in Charlotte, N.C.
Troth
has a writing style which can be saturated with images, and sometimes
difficult to interpret, but claims that beneath it all there is a
narrative which he wishes to convey in every piece.
"I
have always tried to take a more normal experience, falling in love,
traveling, experiencing a friend pass; and break it down into more
abstract images and concepts. I think this is how my mind operates, and
with poetry, my inevitable goal is to bring people into a place where
they may experience the things which influence me in a similar fashion
to how I am affected by them," Troth said.
Rowie Shebala
Roanna Shebala, a Native American spoken word artist, of the Diné – Navajo – Tribe was born and raised on the Navajo Nation.
Given the gift of storytelling from her father she combines story, poetry, and performance.
Shebala
constantly brings the voice of her heritage into her performance, and
written work often treading into spaces where hearing native voices is
unlikely.
In doing so, she hopes to reframe what it
means to be a Native person for the masses, point out the appropriation
of her people's culture, and reclaim an identity that has perverted by
heavily edited versions of history, the invisibilization of indigenous
peoples today, and the use of those people as caricatures for mass
amusement.
Lauren Perry
A slam poet for 11 years, Lauren Perry
has been a four-time Women of the World competitor, representing
Phoenix, Mesa and Sedona.
Something to be said for a
Persona Poet – there is no box to think out of as they are not limited
to one person but rather bring the voice another to carry the
conversation outside any guidelines.
In 2013, Perry
joined her fifth National Poetry Slam team, one that would rank seventh
in the country and make it to semi-finals.
Her poems
use great depth and multiple layers that tap dance back a round-robin to
the beginning to tell more than one story but leave a complete image in
the audience's head.
A born sarcastic, with a dark sense of humor, she’s not one to not love or perform anything less than hard.
Valence
Tyler "Valence" Sirvinskas is a performance poet and new media artist based in Arizona.
Spoken
word, performance art, electronic music, and visual art are all
elements of Valence's artistic vision. In 2011, he began competing in
poetry slams, and represented Flagstaff at the 2011 National Poetry
Slam. In 2012, he won the Sedona Grand Slam, and in 2013 secured a spot
on the Sedona National Poetry Slam Team.
Valence has
lived in Arizona for the last decade, but was born in and spent his
childhood in Chicago. Part of the last generation to know first-hand
what life was like before the internet, Valence is grateful for anything
that makes people silence their smartphones.
In the
future, Valence has plans for touring, various projects, and a new style
of performance art that combines spoken word with live video and music.
At only 23 years of age, he's still somewhat green but definitely done
screwing around.
Lauren Remy
Lauren Remy is 16 years old and a resident of Sedona.
Remy has been a part of youth poetry slams for two years. People have likely seen her spitting some poetry at Java Love Café.
Remy
writes metaphors about fire, or flowers, or space. When she’s not
spitting some radical poetry she’s being a thespian at Sedona Red Rock
High School.
Remy is a cool cat. But isn’t as cool of a cat as James Gould (the glorious leader of North Korea).
Gould is inspiring to Remy because he isn’t narcissistic in the slightest. Also, by the way, Remy is NOT James’s secret admirer.
James Gould
James Gould is kind of a big deal. He is
not only Sedona's "Most Successful Rap Battle Host Ever," but also a
competing poet for the Sedona National Poetry Slam Team.
He performs poetry to get stuff off his chest, like breast reduction.
He
lives and works in Sedona, as "The Best Web Developer You Ever Saw." He
writes poems on subjects including, but not limited to, dinosaurs, free
speech, his irrationally rational fears of babies and fans, and cute
people.
"He is probably the best person ever, and not in the slightest narcissistic." -James's Secret Admirer (Definitely not James).
Gabbi Jue
Gabbi "Truth Bomb" Jue is a spoken word poet, dancer,
creator and survivor with an insatiable love for things that turn pain
into beauty.
Tribulations and triumphs in her lifetime
influence her art, which she uses to bring strength and hope for others
and herself. She has been a member of the Northern Arizona poetry
community since 2011 and was a member of FlagSlam’s 2013 National Poetry
Slam Team that competed at the National Poetry Slam in Boston.
No fear of telling it how it is, her tendency to speak her mind bluntly and honestly has coined her the nickname "Truth Bomb."
Joy Young
Joy Young is a Phoenix-based spoken word performance and teaching artist.
A
self-described “circus-poet,” she believes that often, the best
response to a world constructed of ridiculous assumptions and
expectations is to be equally ridiculous. It is through the
juxtaposition of perceived realities and the absurd that she hopes to
unveil places of possibility and queer our understanding of the world
around us.
Her unique body of work often explores
nuanced understandings of gender, sex, and sexuality in ways that frame
personal narratives as part of larger social justice topics.
Evan Dissinger
Evan Dissinger is 24 years old and currently living in
Flagstaff. He has been involved with slam poetry since 2008 and has been
on two national teams; 2008 with FlagSlam and again in 2012 as a member
of team Sedona.
Dissinger lives with one cat and is
often found hunched over a canvas or cruising on a skateboard when not
at his restaurant day job.
Dissinger is an inquisitive
Aquarius with a unique interpretation of the world around him. Dissinger
caries a timid boldness that can be found reflected in his art.
Verbal Kensington
With a background ranging the spectrum from accounting to
pyrotechnics, Meg "Verbal" Kensington is Necessary Publishing’s Creative
Director and competed on the 2013 Sedona National Poetry Slam Team in
Boston.
She’s also a writer, poet, artist, and mentor. Others know her as a verbal mercenary, with an uncanny knack for organization.
Her
most valued achievements include the ability to speak unabashedly in
the third person, the precise calculation of road-trip gas mileage in
her beloved vintage Subaru, and the unobtrusive creation of an amazing
array of late-night snacks.
She aspires to become more
like her favorite animal, the platypus – the only earthly creature who
is both astonishingly cuddly, and horrendously poisonous.
With
her unique combination of extreme intelligence and stunning good looks,
she plans to one day take over the world – starting today.
The Klute
Phoenix-area crackpot Jerome du Bois once
said of The Klute: "You have one of the blackest hearts I've ever had
the misfortune to glimpse," so in 2007, The Klute received an upgrade.
With
the implantation of a Freestyle bioprosthesis, The Klute now has
"superior flow characteristics." His heart remains blacker than ever.
The
Klute, part man, part machine, all of him sarcastic, is a fixture of
the Arizona poetry scene, having been on five National Slam Poetry Teams
from Mesa (2002-2003, 2005-2006, and 2010) and four from Phoenix
(2008-2009, 2012-2013).
In 2014 he will be published in
anthologies by Write Bloody and Sergeant Press. He's a one-man psy-ops
campaign bringing the system down from inside. He buys low and sells
high. He keeps the Grim Reaper on speed dial and his absinthe on ice.
Christopher Fox Graham
The Sedona Poetry Grand 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.
He recently earned a
slot on the 2014 FlagSlam team which will compete alongside the Sedona
team at Nationals. Graham has hosted the Sedona Poetry Slam since 2009.
