Sedona Poetry Grand Slam

			Grand Slam
Poet	Total Points	Rank	order on  6/28/2016
Josh Wiss	17	1	12
Evan Dissinger	14	2	11
The Klute	9	3	10
Christopher Fox Graham	6	4		On FlagSlam
Ryan Smalley	5	5		On FlagSlam
Claire Pearson	5	6		On FlagSlam
Rowie Shebala	3	7	9
Valence	3	8	8
Gary Every	3	8	7
Josh Floyd	3	10	5
Jess Ballantyne	3	10	6
Tara Aitken	2	11	4
Gabbi Jue	1	12		On FlagSlam
Taylor Marie	1	12	3
Ali Daly	1	13	2
David	1	13	2
Diana Stoneberg	1	13	2
Kaycee Pearson	1	13	2
Kenny Kreslake	1	13	2
Kim Possible	1	13		On FlagSlam
Lauren Perry	1	13	2
Robert Chandler Gonzales	1	13	2

"This Heart is Just a Muscle" by Christopher Fox Graham

you point to it
and ask "what does it say?"

"nothing"

this heart is just a muscle
beats and blood
red meat
pumping
keeping this body moving
love does not live there

a ribcage prisoner
blind, it will never see the sun
never look upon you
deaf, it will never hear your name
no matter how closely you whisper it
handless, it will never jerk the steering wheel into a U-turn
back to you
it trusts the rest of me
moving symphonically
to avoid a billion red passengers
spilling onto the asphalt or the carpet
through an open wound

if it had desire
it would be for silence beyond a locked door
so it could work uninterrupted

if I'm lucky
it will count 4.4 billion beats
before gunshot or nuclear explosion or lightning bolt
halts the countdown to infinity

this heart is just a muscle
love does not live there
and you cannot change that
no matter how sweet your words slip out
no matter how your curves pull me to lock my hips with yours
and match your rhythms
this heart is just a muscle
love does not live there

but inside this skull
are a trillion neurons firing at random
holding the smell of my grandfather's wheatfields in August
the feel of baseball threads
a gaggle of palindromic primes
the echo of 50 lovers' names
dialects of this singular tongue

whatever this is
the contours of your body
the weight of your name in my ears
the taste of you still in my mouth
it floats somewhere in there
an elusive bolt electricity near lightspeed
billiard-balling the gray matter net
and what it says depends on the impact of ricochets and shockwaves
punching memories of you
into waking moments

if I could purge your infection with antibodies
I would have bled you out months ago

we were not built to hold each other this hard
but I'm unable to unhook you from the rest of me
our houses of cards are built on the day before
and time can’t moonwalk

we are broken machines
with imperfect parts
but if there is love anywhere
it is a frozen moment of you holding me

there is no antivirus to cut you loose
no hard reboot of these systems

I am a ribcage prisoner
of this unrelenting heart
it’s just a muscle
beating blood to all the parts of me
that can still measure the millimeters of your smile
hear you cry my name without consonants
remember how you would pin me down
so we would sleep chest to chest
barenaked in the afternoons
symphonically every muscle still aches your name
still yearns the echoes


this hermetic heart is just a muscle
and it says nothing
love does not live there 
it doesn't have to
the rest of me is so loud with you
I couldn't hear it anyway

2016 © Christopher Fox Graham

Penultimate Sedona Poetry Slam takes place on Saturday, May 7

The Sedona Poetry Slam hosts the penultimate slam of the season on Saturday, May 7. Poets are invited to compete at the fifth slam of the 2015-16 season, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m. at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre, 2030 W. SR 89A, Suite A-3, in West Sedona.

Finales are great, but it's the penultimate event when pulses race, scores are settled and a path to total victory is decided.

"The Rains of Castamere", "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", "Half Measures", "Islanded in a Stream of Stars", "The Blue Comet", "Lux Æterna" (on the "Requiem for a Dream" soundtrack), the Final Four, the one and only Enterprise-class aircraft carrier, The War of the Roses' Battle of Bosworth Field ... all were penultimates, and a few brought kings to the grave.

All poets are welcome to compete for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize. Tickets are $12. Call Mary D. Fisher Theatre at 282-1177 or visit SedonaFilmFestival.org. Contact host Christopher Fox Graham at foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up to slam.

To compete in the slam, poets will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted. The poets are 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.

Poets in the Sedona Poetry Slam come from as far away as Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, competing against adult poets from Sedona and Cottonwood, college poets from Northern Arizona University, and youth poets from Sedona Red Rock High School’s Young Voices Be Heard slam group.

The prize money is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporters Jeanne and Jim Freeland.

The Sedona Poetry Slam will be hosted by Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on nine FlagSlam National Poetry Slams in 2001, 2004-06, 2010 and 2012-15. Graham has hosted the Sedona Poetry Slam since 2009.

The slam is the last regular slam of the 2015-16 season, which will culminate in selection of Sedona’s fifth National Poetry Slam Team, the foursome and alternate who will represent the city and the Verde Valley at the National Poetry Slam in Decatur, Ga., in August. The first five poetry slams took place Oct. 10, Jan. 2, Feb. 6, March 12 and April 9.

The May 7 slam is the last one open to any competitor, and is the last chance poets have to earn a berth in the Grand Poetry Slam. The final Grand Poetry Slam takes place on May 28, to determine the team. The poets who make the team to represent Sedona will share the stage at the week-long National Poetry Slam with 350 of the top poets in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Sedona sent its five-poet first team to the 2012 NPS in Charlotte, N.C., its second to the 2013 NPS in Boston and Cambridge, Mass., and its third and fourth to Oakland, Calif.

Marc Smith ("So what?!"), founded poetry slam in Chicago in 1984

What is Poetry Slam?

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 and inspire the audience with their creativity.

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.

For more information, visit poetryslam.com or the PSi channel on YouTube.


Marc Kelly Smith performing "Kiss It."


Dan Sullivan, J.W. Basilo, Shelley Elaine G. Randall performing slam poetry in Hamburg, Germany in 2011.


Slam New Orleans team members Desiree Dallagiacamo and Justin Lamb performing "The Friend Zone"

A brief history of the FlagSlam National Poetry Slam Team

December 2000, FlagSlam founded.
First FlagSlam Dynasty
The Founders' Era 

In 2001, 12th National Poetry Slam in Seattle, Wash.:
Grand Slam Champion: Josh Fleming
Nick Fox
Chris Lane
Christopher Fox Graham
Alternate: Eric “A-rek” Matthew Dye
Coach: Andy “War” Wall

After I graduated from Arizona State University and made the FlagSlam team, I moved to Flagstaff in June.

Second FlagSlam Dynasty

Kofonow Era

In 2002, 13th National Poetry Slam in Minneapolis, Minn.:
Grand Slam Champion: Suzy La Follette
Logan Phillips
Andy “War” Hall
Dom Flemons
Alternate: Jarrod Masseud Karimi (quit before the National Poetry Slam)
Coach and alternate: John Raymond Kofonow

I tried out for the FlagSlam team in 2002 but pulled the "1" and got clobbered. I had already been planning the Save the Male Tour with Josh Fleming, so that was my summer instead. 
 First tie at NPS: New York City-Urbana and Detroit

In 2003, 14th National Poetry Slam in Chicago, Ill.:
Grand Slam Champion: Suzy La Follette
Logan Phillips
Cass Hodges
Dom Flemons
Alternate: Julie Hudgens (quit before the National Poetry Slam)
Coach and alternate: John Raymond Kofonow

I was a volunteer bout manager at NPS in 2003.

In 2004: 15th National Poetry Slam in St. Louis, Mo.:
Grand Slam Champion: Christopher Fox Graham
Eric Larson
Logan Phillips
Brent Heffron
Coaches: Mary Guaraldi, and John Raymond Kofonow

First time all four NPS finalist teams were from west of the Mississippi River (Hollywood's Da Poetry Lounge, Denver, Dallas and Berkeley). One of the worst organized NPSes due to the location of venues relative to each other and the venues in question. This was the first NORAZ Poets slam team.

In 2005: 16th National Poetry Slam in Albuquerque, N.M.:
Grand Slam Champion: Chris Lane
Logan Phillips
Christopher Fox Graham
Meghan Jones
Aaron Johnson
Coaches: Mary Guaraldi and John Raymond Kofonow

FlagSlam sent a crew of poets and supporters because Albuquerque was so close. I was also legal guardian for my ward, Sarrah Wile. One of the best organized NPSes. All venues were within walking distance of the Hotel Blue. The hotel manager lost his job for what he allowed us to do, but won the Spirit of the Slam Award.This was the secondNORAZ Poets slam team.

In 2006: 17th National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas:
Aaron Johnson
Christopher Fox Graham (kicked off team before the National Poetry Slam)
Meghan Jones (quit before the National Poetry Slam)
Justin “Biskit” Powell
Alternate: A.J. Moyer (Joined team)
Coaches: Greg Nix (quit before the National Poetry Slam) and John Raymond Kofonow (quit before the National Poetry Slam)

This year was a train wreck. Those who know why, know why. I'm glad A.J., Aaron Johnson and Biskit had a good time at NPS, though. This was the third and final NORAZ Poets slam team.

Third FlagSlam Dynasty
Johnson-Phillips Era

In 2007: 18th National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas:
Grand Slam Champion: Joseph Nieves
Aaron Johnson
Troy Thurman
J.J. Valentine

Last year Individual Poetry Slam Championships were held at NPS. They would be held at a separate event, the Individual World Poetry Slam starting in 2008.

Fourth FlagSlam Dynasty

Rebirth Era (Cartier-Brown-O'Brien, notable for the Lost Boys and the "Flagstaff cadence")

In 2008: 19th National Poetry Slam in Madison, Wis.:
Grand Slam Champion: Frank O'Brien
Ryan Brown
John Cartier
Jessica Guadarrama
Alternate: Kami Henderson
Coach: Dana Sakowicz

In 2009: 20th National Poetry Slam in West Palm Beach, FL.
Grand Slam Champion: Frank O'Brien
Ryan Brown
John Cartier
Andrew “Antranormus” Wanner
Jessica Guadarrama
Coach: Dana Sakowicz

Fifth FlagSlam Dynasty

Brown Era

In 2010: 21st National Poetry Slam in St. Paul, Minn:
Grand Slam Champion: Ryan Brown
Brian Towne
Johnny P (quit before the National Poetry Slam)
RahMahMercy (quit before the National Poetry Slam)
Frank O'Brien (Joined team in Johnny P's slot)
Christopher Fox Graham (Joined team in RahMahMercy's slot)
Alternate: Christopher Harbster (quit before the National Poetry Slam)

I was going to be a volunteer bout manager at NPS in 2010, but wound up on the team.

In 2011: 22nd National Poetry Slam in Cambridge and Boston, Mass.:
Grand Slam Champion: Shaun “nodalone” Srivastava
Maple Dewleaf
Taylor Marie “Tay” Kayonnie-Ehrlich
Christopher Harbster (quit before the National Poetry Slam)
Alternate: Tyler “Valence” Sirvinskas (Joined team)

I was a volunteer venue manager at NPS in 2011. 

In 2012: 23rd National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C.:
Grand Slam Champion: Christopher Fox Graham
Ryan Brown
Tara Pollock (tied)
Shaun “nodalone” Srivastava (tied)
Alternate: Jackson Morris (Joined team)

Sixth FlagSlam Dynasty

Quinonez Era

In 2013: 24th National Poetry Slam in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville, Mass.:
Grand Slam Champion: Christopher Fox Graham
Jackson Morris
Vincent Simone
Verbal Kensington (opted out to give Gabbi Jue her slot and compete for the Sedona National Poetry Slam Team)
Alternate: Austin Reeves (Joined team)
2nd alternate: Gabbi Jue (Joined team)

In 2014: 25th National Poetry Slam in Oakland, Calif.:
Grand Slam Champion: Ryan Smalley
Josh Wiss
Josh Floyd
Christopher Fox Graham
Alternate: Claire Pearson (Joined team)
Coach: John Quinonez

A caravan headed from Flagstaff: The Yorktown, The Truth Bomber and The Majin Buu. On the first night in Oakland, The Yorktown was broken into and thieves stole computers and clothes from John Quinonez, Christopher Fox Graham and Ryan Smalley but we still had an awesome time.

In 2015: 26th National Poetry Slam in Oakland, Calif.:
Grand Slam Champion: Ryan Smalley
Christopher Fox Graham 
Gabbi Jue
Vincent Vega (Moved to Japan prior to NPS)
Alternate: Claire Pearson (Joined team)
Coach: John Quinonez

 Due to the untimely death of regular FlagSlam poet Lauren Delores Spencer in a car accident, the FlagSlam donated money to assist with funeral expenses. FlagSlam was late paying for registration and instead was placed on the waiting list, but never made it to the regular rotation. Team members went and volunteered and still had an awesome time. 

Seventh FlagSlam Dynasty

Quorum of Five Era

In 2016: 27th National Poetry Slam in Decatur, Ga.
Grand Slam Champion: Ryan Smalley
Gabbi Jue
Claire Pearson
Christopher Fox Graham 
Alternate: Kim Possible, aka Kim Jarchow, (Joined team)
Coach: John Quinonez

John Quinonez officially stepped down as slammaster at the conclusion of the slam, handing the reins of slammastership to a Quorum of Five: Gabbi Jue, Rowie Shebala, Wil Williams, Claire Pearson and Kim Jarchow. To be clear, Wil Williams is, without a doubt, an absolute shitbag person, rudely condescending, most especially to other women, ignorantly and embarrassingly self-righteous and wholly unprepared to lead anything other than a solo long walk off a short pier.  I had very little to do with her but the exodus of veteran poets sick of her strong-arm tactics to dominate the event was deafening. She literally made other poets I love cry and drove freshman poets away and they called me about it. After running the slam in the ground and causing the five-women to break up as leaders, Facing a coup or complete dissolution of the slam, Wil Williams fled both the slam and Flagstaff and is reportedly holed up in Phoenix as a  "podcast critic," which is as pointless as that sounds and, unsurprisingly, "reviews" things because she made her judgmentalism professionally masturbatory. If she gets hit by a truck, most Flagstaff poets will feel bad for the truck and I know which women will be driving it. 

In any case, FlagSlam has seen struggles before, but Wil Williams was a clear, present and unique threat to its survival even more so than COVID a few years later.

 Kim Jarchow and Claire Pearson salvaged the slam and rebuilt it.

"Flagslam Competitive Spoken Word," a video from Taylor Miller

Canadian slam poet Mona Faith Mousa headlines the Sedona Poetry Slam on March 12 (CFG's birthday)

Mona Faith Mousa

Canadian slam poet Mona Faith Mousa headlines the Sedona Poetry Slam on March 12. Poets are invited to compete at the fourth slam of the 2015-16 season, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m. at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre, 2030 W. SR 89A, Suite A-3 in West Sedona.

All poets are welcome to compete for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize. Tickets are $12. Call Mary D. Fisher Theatre at 282-1177 or visit the Sedona International Film Festival website.

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

Graham will also be celebrating his birthday on March 12, which he shares with writers Jack Kerouac, Dave Eggers, Carl Hiaasen, Naomi Shihab Nye and Gabriele D'Annunzio.

 

Mona Faith Mousa

Inspired by several Canadian and American slam poets, Mousa found herself in an addictive relationship with the written and spoken word. At 17 she hit the stage for the first time at Toronto’s well-known annual Open Minds Respect events. Nine year later Mousahas been on the road almost nonstop, having recently come off her 2015 Summer tour schedule to the southern United States, and Hawaii.

Mona Faith Mousa

Over the past 9 years Mousa’s mission has been to work to empower young adults engaging them in discussion. The mission is about promoting real love, love as an action that we commit to unconditionally. This love is about safe spaces no matter one's religion, social class, gender or sexual orientation. The mission is education & tolerance, no exceptions. It’s about a queer-positive and body-positive state of mind. The mission is mental health awareness, and letting people know that rescue is possible, that everyone's story is important . It’s helping turn scars into stories.
Mousa's charm and passion drive her and she is ready to take North America by storm, as one of Canada's most promising, up and coming performance poets.

Mona Faith Mousa

“[Mona Faith Mousa] has a maturity in her voice beyond her years,” wrote Will McGuirk, of Oshawa This Week, in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. “That is due to her openness to experience of a deeper order. Poetry arises from activity, sure, but more importantly from connectivity. Poems can be found in subdivisions, on courts, in driveways.

“One needs only the right equipment to catch them, equipment Mona has in ample amounts. She will show you where to look among the strip malls and the pylons. There are heroes in the suburbs.

“Mona is an awesome up-and-coming performance poet,” said Brendan McLeod, of The Fugitives, a spoken word troupe based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. “She's funny, charming, thoughtful and even a bit audacious. I heartily support her work as an emerging Canadian spoken word artist.”

 

What is Poetry Slam?

Host Christopher Fox Graham will also be celebrating
his birthday on Saturday,  March 12, which he shares
with writers Jack Kerouac, Dave Eggers, Carl Hiaasen,
Naomi Shihab Nye and Gabriele D'Annunzio.

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 and inspire the audience with their creativity.

Poets in the Sedona Poetry Slam come from as far away as Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, competing against adult poets from Sedona and Cottonwood, college poets from Northern Arizona University, and youth poets from Sedona Red Rock High School’s Young Voices Be Heard slam group.

To compete in the slam, poets will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted. The poets are 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 prize money is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporters Jeanne and Jim Freeland.

The Sedona Poetry Slam will be hosted by Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on nine FlagSlam National Poetry Slams in 2001, 2004-06, 2010, 2012-15. Graham has hosted the Sedona Poetry Slam since 2009.

 

2015-16 Sedona Poetry Slam Schedule

The slam is the fourth of the 2015-16 season, which will culminate in selection of Sedona’s fifth National Poetry Slam Team, the foursome and alternate who will represent the city and the Verde Valley at the National Poetry Slam in Decatur, Ga., in August. The first three poetry slams took place Oct. 10, Jan. 2 and Feb. 6 slam. Future dates include:

• Saturday, April 9, featuring Ryan Brown
• Saturday, May 7
• Saturday, May 28 Grand Slam

The final Grand Poetry Slam takes place on May 28, to determine the team. The poets who make the team on May 28 to represent Sedona will share the stage at the week-long National Poetry Slam with 350 of the top poets in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Sedona sent its five-poet first team to the 2012 NPS in Charlotte, N.C., its second to the 2013 NPS in Boston and Cambridge, Mass., and its third and fourth to Oakland, Calif.

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.

"Clyde Tombaugh" by Christopher Fox Graham

"Clyde Tombaugh"

A companion poem to "Dear Pluto"

The Kansas boy stares into the sky
counting stars with his fingers
pretending he can touch each one
playing piano keys with constellations

Clyde Tombaugh

the spheres make music most us will never hear
but he orchestrates symphonies
oboes in Orion
clarinets in Cancer
violins in Virgo
percussion rumbling off supernova timpanies
snare drums on the skin of black holes
while spinning quasars keep perfect rhythm

the boy, now a teen measures stars with his telescopes
built from leftover parts
shaping steel and mirrors
to bend the light down into his hands
he wants to hold the weight of stardust in his palm

the boy, now a man,
works on Mars Hill
the evening shift at Lowell Observatory
scouring the images for differences
one single speck out of place
but these were skies he could paint from memory

on a night like tonight
a cold February
the man became a boy again
when he found a spot hide-and-seeking with him
telling him the stars and planets were looking back at us
an undiscovered instrument making music he was the first to hear
a ninth symphony he held for a moment
heard alone, echoing in solitary discovery
before he shared it with the world

76 years later,
nine years after his death
mankind's ship in a bottle
broke the bonds of earth to reach out
and find New Horizons
in the cold dark of space

Clyde Tombaugh's ashes aboard New Horizons

in a case no bigger than heart of a boy
now 2.97 billion miles from Kansas
from Mars Hill
from our entire history
are the ashes of the man who first heard the music

after six years alone in the dark
he traveled farther than anyone in history
to visit a world unseen by human eyes
and last July, the man became a boy again
matching his imagination to the globe in front of him
visiting an undiscovered country held for a moment
a solitary discovery
before he shared it with the world


at that distance, signals and light take 4 and half hours to reach home
in those hours, Clyde Tombaugh,
you had a world captivated in the silence
waiting 4 billion years
for someone to visit

what did you talk about?

did she ask what the sun feels like when so much closer?
how it warms your skin in summer?

did she tell you her story?
what it’s like to be so far away, alone in night?
how her years pass in centuries?

did you tell her about us?
about Kansas
about Mars Hill
about what it feels like to hold stardust in your palm?
did you tell her there were 7 billion boys and girls back home
waiting to see her for the first time?

was she eager to meet you since she first saw you
playing hide and seek with your telescopes
or counting stars with your fingers

or did she just sing a song?
one half of an unfinished duet
a harmony you already knew
something slow and beautiful
a secret only two lovers can understand

"The Crowd's Choice" by Jesse Parent

Yeshua bar-Abba, (Jesus Barabbas, a Hellenization of the Aramaic בר אבא) is a figure mentioned in the accounts of the Passion of Christ, in which he is an insurrectionist whom Pontius Pilate freed at the Passover feast in Jerusalem, instead of releasing Yeshua of Nazareth, better known as Jesus.

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Performing during prelims at the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam.

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We seek to showcase the power and diversity of voices in our community. By encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, we hope to broaden poetry's audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.

"Space Oddity" by David Bowie, performed by Canadian astronaut Cmdr. Chris Hadfield

A revised of David Bowie's Space Oddity, recorded by Cmdr. Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station.

Composition: “SPACE ODDITY”
Written by David Bowie
Published by Onward Music Limited

(Note: This video cannot be reproduced and is licensed for online music use only.)

With thanks to Emm Gryner, Joe Corcoran, Andrew Tidby and Evan Hadfield for all their hard work.

Captioning kindly provided by CHS (www.chs.ca)

From the album “Space Sessions: Songs From a Tin Can.” Available everywhere now.
CD/LP: http://www.smarturl.it/SpaceSessionsPhys
Download: http://www.smarturl.it/SpaceSessionsDL
Stream: http://www.smarturl.it/SpaceSesionsStrm

Synthespians. Cause nerds are awesome

Robots, cyborgs, holograms and computers. Oh my. From Star Wars, to Robocop to The Jetsons; 66 famous synthetic characters from your favorite TV shows and movies. By Scott Park.

A bit of a fact-check

Nick Fox, the founder of the Flagstaff Poetry Slam, returned to Flagstaff recently. In his blog "... said the Fox," he posted "The Hourglass Point: Arizona in Three Parts" on Oct. 5, 2015. It's an interesting rewrite of interpersonal history and while acknowledging some of his past, he's still playing some of the silly games he did when he lived in Flagstaff.

In that post, he acknowledges that the slam he started is still running: "I enrolled at Northern Arizona University, moved to Flagstaff, and started a poetry slam in a bar called The Alley. Fifteen years later, that show is still running."

In part II, Nick Fox discussed Christopher Lane, who died in August 2012:

"I could write a great deal about that road. But right now, I’d rather write about Christopher Lane.

"When I started the Flagstaff Slam in 2000, a poet from Dallas who’d recently moved to the area became a regular, and eventually became a member of the first Flagstaff team to compete at the National Poetry Slam in 2001. When I left town in 2002, Christopher helped take over the show, then took it in directions I never dreamed of.

"He founded a group called NORAZ Poets in 2003, and used it to to help facilitate workshops, run shows and, most impressively, to create the Arizona branch of the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project. He became one of the most important poets and community organizers in the state, performed hundreds of times for people of every age range. He’d been through extraordinary hardship in his life, and had somehow emerged as one of the most generous and thoughtful artists I’ve ever met.

"One day in 2012 I got an email from Brent Heffron. Christopher had died. He lay down one day to take a nap and never woke up. He was only 40 years old."

This isn't entirely accurate. Lane didn't take a nap and not wake up. "On Aug. 19, 2012, at 7:05 a.m., Lane was pronounced dead at his home from benzodiazepine and narcotic intoxication, according to the Coconino County Medical Examiner's Office."

[Addendum: The poem Autopsy 3944494]

This was more convoluted that Nick Fox makes out. Maybe he didn't know. Maybe he's sugarcoating the issue, but the bottomline is that Lane had been in AA and NA since moving to Sedona, having been on meth for a good portion of his teens and 20s. He moved to Sedona to stay with his sister fearing that if he stayed in Dallas, he would die there.

After being sober for quite some time in Sedona, and having effectively quit attending meeting, he got a job as a sommelier at a Sedona resort. He had been a waiter for more than a decade. In the months (maybe longer, I have no idea) he began drinking a bit with a coworker of his I knew and told mutual friends he felt like he could handle his alcohol -- none of this I knew until after he died.

While at the newspaper, I found his name in a traffic stop for a potential DUI, which struck me as very odd considering I only knew him to be clean and sober, but trusting how reckless and resilient we artists are, just assumed he had briefly fallen off the wagon, was shocked back to sobriety by the traffic stop, and would the be the substance-free straight-edge poet we all knew. I heard he then left the sommelier job and began working at a local health food grocery store. A few times in that last year I would see him walking along State Route 89A as he lived right across the road. I was told by these mutual friends that he would walk from work to the liquor store, then walk home. 

At some point nearing his 40th birthday, Lane went back to visit friends in Dallas. Based solely on information from mutual friends, it appears he may have acquired something from them there that he brought home, which may have lead to his overdose.

"We hadn’t been in touch for a couple of years. Not on purpose. Nothing had happened. I’d just moved into a different life and didn’t see him or talk to him much for a while. Then not at all. We simply lost touch."

This isn't quite accurate. When Nick Fox was still living in Flagstaff in 2001-2022, he decided that my 22-year-old partying and lifestyle needed an intervention, so he drove down to Oak Creek Canyon to convince Lane to join him in the effort. Lane was less than impressed with the proposal, and said that after all his experience in the drug scene in his 20s that my binge drinking was nowhere near the troubles his had encountered. 

Lane told me after the fact that the issue was Nick Fox, being the son of an alcoholic he could not save, was doing whatever he could to save others. Lane said he more or less laughed at the idea, or at least told me that's more or less whet he said to Nick Fox: Stop trying to save people who don't need saving and deal with actual loss in your actual life. Again, this is hearsay, but it what's Lane said to me at the time.

After Nick Fox left the area and Lane and I developed our friendship, Nick Fox's sanctimoniousness kind of became a butt of jokes between us. At poetry afterparties he'd joke that if I had one to two many beers or whiskey's that "Nick Fox will hear you." Granted, I have no idea what their personal relationship or correspondence was, but considering all the gossip Lane and I did about poets in the scene, it's suprising how little and how rarely Nick Fox came up except maybe when we'd bump into him at the National Poetry Slam.

Nick Fox continues: "When I first met Christopher, he was living in a trailer on a ridge in Oak Creek Canyon, right above a general store that sold jewelry and served impossibly good sandwiches. It was a peaceful place, both secluded and close enough to the main highway to take his motorcycle out on long rides across the state. We used to sit under the awning of his trailer and talk about writing. I was always blown away by his sensitivity, his incredible ability to empathize. He became a mentor to a lot of people in the poetry scene almost from the beginning, and it came as no surprise to me when I heard about the world-shaping work he was doing in the time after I left the state."

Photo by Nick Fox

"Christopher lived on the ridge just behind this store.

"I stopped at the old general store and walked around. I kept looking up that ridge where Christopher had his home. I’ve spent most of my life trying to learn how to write, to share what I’ve picked up, to have some small impact on the people around me. I want people to know about Christopher Lane, and I hope that talking about him and writing about his life is a small way of continuing what he did. It’s astonishing what this guy put together in Arizona in less than a decade. I’d like to have even a share of the impact on the people around me that Christopher had on me and everyone he touched. Maybe I can do that. I hope so."

Part III relates to Flagstaff. It reads in part: "The Flagstaff Slam, after years of moving around, is back in the same location it started in. The location houses a completely different business in a completely redesigned room, but it was kind of beautiful for me to come back and see the show running in the same spot as it was in my early twenties. Deep down, I sort of hoped I’d see some of those old faces at the show. Brent [Heffron]. Logan [Phillips]. Dom [Flemons]. Julie [?]. Frank [? Not O'Brian, he didn't move to Flagstaff until 2009]. Josh [Fleming]. Suzy [la Follette]. Christopher Lane. But it was a brand new, very young crowd, and it all felt very far away."

This part is hilarious because I was there that night and I made eye contact with him. It was clear he saw me because he looked at me long enough to realized he was looking at me, then did what he could to pretend to ignore me. The he took this photo, which he posted:

(really bad) photo by Nick Fox

He continues: "There was no one I knew there, and no one who knew me. Maybe that’s how it should be at this point. I’m thrilled the show is still running, but it would be foolish to say I have any real connection to it now. I started something 15 years ago, but it has taken dozens, maybe hundreds of people to keep it running this long. The show is theirs. It belongs to the city."

Good lord, Nick, who's that fedoraed man on the right?

No, to be clear, there's no love lost between Nick Fox and me. While he got me into slam and convinced me to leave the Phoenix area and join the scene in Flagstaff to help him run the FlagSlam and made me the slammaster, he also did some abosolutely shitting manipulative things to turn my poets against me. He fucked with my life and my reputation beyond which I am able to forgive, simply because he has not and will not accept the fact he did anything wrong.

Am I bitter? Yes. Is Nick Fox an ass? Yes.

So yes, Nick, the show is still running in spite of your efforts to make it about you. It survived you and your absence brilliantly. It feels far away because it should FlagSlam is beyond us both, but it is simply better without you. It is my home and safe harbor, where I asked the audience to turn my girlfriend into my wife, and where I have brought my newborn children to hear their first spoken word. You can live whatever fiction you want and wax poetic about good days gone, but they're gone because you behave the way you and mistreat the trust of those who are your betters.

In summary this: Around 2010, some FlagSlam poets came to my Sedona Poetry Slam with a collection of poetry they found at a thrift store recorded by FlagSlam poets. It was labeled "The House That Fox Built." And they were thrilled that poets from 2002 had created a CD dedicated not to some passerby with the surname Fox, but me. I have no reason to correct them. You may have poured the foundation, but I built the house and kept it standing these last 15 years.

"Mathematical Love Poem" by Jokyr

Jokyr at the Nerd Poetry Slam -