Tuesday, July 4, 2023
"Spinal Language" by Christopher Fox Graham
Monday, July 3, 2023
"रीढ़ की हड्डी की भाषा" by Christopher Fox Graham
गंगा नदी पर वाराणसी |
"रीढ़ की हड्डी की भाषा"
"Ridh ki haddi ki bhasha"
Sunday, July 2, 2023
"Omurga Dili" by Christopher Fox Graham
"Omurga Dili"
Saturday, July 1, 2023
"脊髓語言" by Christopher Fox Graham
香港特別行政區 |
"脊髓語言"
Saturday, June 3, 2023
Rudy Francisco, "To The Girl Who Works At Starbucks"
Thursday, June 1, 2023
"Lumberjacking is the World's Most Dangerous Profession" ... for 2023
falling trees and limbs slay lumberjacks at a rate
30 times higher than average
breaking bones a dozen times daily
these arms are not built to fell trees
these hands not built to wield axes or chainsaws
I am no lumberjack
but I know the sound of a tree falling in a forest
we do not know how many died
to build this stage
to erect these room
to raise this roof
poetry is the world’s most dangerous art form
suicide and addiction and overdose slay poets
at a rate not measured by the Bureau of Statistics
because we do not list "poet" as a profession
no matter how deep is in our bones
but I am a poet
these arms were built to climb trees
these hands to wield pen and microphone
the sound of a poet falling in a forest
sounds so much like a tree
even the Earth can't tell the difference
we do not know how many died
to raise this roof
to erect these room
to build this stage
I know no dead lumberjacks
but if I were to inscribe the names of all the dead poets
this body would be inkwell:
one drowned in the heat of lonely city
one who shotgunned the worst of him
across pages of the best of him
but died alone in the desert
one with the Will of a Haymaker
now Basquiating himself
with a heroin needle
refusing to hear us say
one who swam into the river
never intending to reach the far shore
one who relived his golden age
overdosing on methadone
one who named his son Oren
and told us to look it up
wrote that one day his son would fall,
but a poet would there to catch him
and another poet
and another
and another
I know no lumberjacks
but I know they must weep like I do
whenever these names come flooding back
we do not build furniture or homes or monuments or empires
tangibility that can exist without the living
we only leave behind our words
which yellow and age over time
only existing if we read or speak them
but there are too many words now
and not enough time
and I'm beginning to forget
and there's no one here to help
lumberjacks take refuge in the woods
work beneath the leaves
take revenge on the limbs and trees
that slew their brothers
but we poets have nowhere to go
but back to these pages
to these microphones
to these slam stages
where we pour out our rage
it's why we're always shouting
a Dead Poets Society
is trapped in our throats
I'm not even supposed to be here
there's too much sin,
sloth
and pride
to be a Speaker of the Dead
to bear this burden of survivor
I am the Devil's bad luck
and the Grim Reaper's off days
I am tired of burying our dead
of toasting our fallen as conquering heroes
of retelling all the same old stories
to those old poets who can remember
before the needle drained
the pills slowed
the bullet shattered
the depression became too much to bear
I am tired of telling new young poets
about who came before
or how their newest stanza
can make me weep
because it sounds so much like someone
they can read but never meet
they don't need this added weight
while learning to fly
I am tired of telling still-living poets
with one foot in the graveyard
and one hand on a needle
that I don't deserve to outlive them
one poet named his son “Pine Tree” in Hebrew
wrote that one day he would fall
I am no lumberjack
but I will ready to catch him
because a poet said to
I can build nothing
but this
this is a promise I can keep
Saturday, May 27, 2023
Alex Copeland & Jensen McRae "Trumpets"
Saturday, May 20, 2023
Iain Kohn, Pathum Madigapola & Khamal Iwuanyanwu "Wearing Different Faces"
Iain Kohn, Pathum Madigapola & Khamal Iwuanyanwu, performing at the 2015 Get Lit Classic Slam in Los Angele
Tuesday, May 9, 2023
Seth Walker features at the final Sedona Poetry Slam of the 2022-23 season
The Sedona Poetry Slam has reached the final slam of the season before the summer break Saturday, May 13. Performance poets will bring high-energy, competitive spoken word to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m.
Seth Walker
Between rounds, one of the best known performance poets in the country will feature on the stage.
Seth Walker is a poet, playwright, songwriter, and musician born in Baton Rouge, La., raised in Texas and now living in Phoenix. His upbringing in the southern United States is reflected in his work, which often explores themes of love, loss and the human experience. For five years, he toured nonstop across the United States and Canada, performing at poetry venues almost every night.
Walker's poetry is known for its raw emotion and its ability to capture the beauty and complexity of everyday life. His work often incorporates elements of nature, and he has been praised for his ability to use the natural world as a metaphor for human emotion and experience.
Overall, Walker's poetry is a testament to the power of language and its ability to evoke deep emotions and connect people to one another. His work is a reminder that even in the midst of pain and hardship, there is still beauty and meaning to be found in the world.
The Slam
If you have told your friends you were going to attend a poetry slam this year, but haven't yet, this is your last chance to see what you've been anticipating.
A poetry slam is like a series of high-energy, three-minute one-person plays, judged by the audience. Anyone can sign up to compete in the slam for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize. 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.
Slam poetry is an art form that allows written page poets to share their work alongside theatrical performers, hip-hop artists and lyricists. Poets 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.
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.
BlackBerry Peach
Also expected to compete is B-Jam, aka Ben Gardea, who was chosen last month by Sedona's judges to represent all of Arizona against more than 40 other top poets at the BlackBerryPeach National Slam Poetry Competition held June 21 to June 26, in Des Moines, Iowa, sponsored by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies and the Iowa Poetry Association. He is the Arizona State Poetry Society's official state representative.
Mary D. Fisher Theatre is located at 2030 W. SR 89A, Suite A-3, in West Sedona. Tickets are $12. For tickets, call 282-1177 or visit SedonaFilmFestival.org.
The Sedona Poetry Slam will return for its 15th season the fall.
The prize money is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporters Jeanne and Jim Freeland.
Email foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up early to compete or by the Friday before the slam or at the door the day of the slam. Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive.
For more information, visit sedonafilmfestival.com or foxthepoet.blogspot.com.
Founded at the Green Mill Tavern in Chicago in 1984 by Marc Smith, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport designed to get people who would otherwise never go to a poetry reading excited about the art form when it becomes a high-energy competition. 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. Slam poets have opened at the Winter Olympics, performed at the White House and at the United Nations General Assembly and were featured on "Russell Simmon's Def Poets" on HBO.
Sedona has sent four-poet teams to represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., Boston, Cambridge, Mass., Oakland, Calif., Decatur, Ga., Denver and Chicago.
Saturday, May 6, 2023
Amina Iro and Hannah Halpern, "The Way the World Sees Us"
Amina Iro and Hannah Halpern, from DC's Youth Slam Poetry Team, compete at the 2014 Common Ground Awards The Common Ground Awards are produced by Search for Common Ground, an international peacebuilding organization working to end violent conflict in 35 countries around the world,
Saturday, April 29, 2023
Sierra DeMulder, "Today Means Amen"
Sierra DeMulder is an internationally-recognized poet, educator, and podcast host. She is a two-time National Poetry Slam champion, a five-time published author (The Bones Below, New Shoes on a Dead Horse, We Slept Here, Today Means Amen, and Ephemera forthcoming in June 2023), and the co-host of Just Break Up, a globally popular advice podcast that has been downloaded more than 4 million times. Sierra lives in upstate New York with her wife and daughter.
Saturday, April 22, 2023
"A Finger, Two Dots Then Me," the short film of Derrick C. Brown's poem
Saturday, April 15, 2023
Solli Raphael, "We breathe in, we breathe out."
Solli Raphael from Coffs Harbour in New South Wales delivers an encore performance at the Australian Poetry Slam national final to a full house at the Sydney Opera House, becoming the competition's youngest winner in 2017
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Remembering Danny Solis
ROCHESTER — Danny Solis once wrote that “the body swims in the lake of the soul.”
Saturday, April 8, 2023
Khamal Iwuanyanwu, "Sepia"
Khamal Iwuanyanwu, performing at the 2015 Get Lit Classic Slam in Los Angeles, CA.
Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.
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.
Saturday, April 1, 2023
Danny Sherrard performs in Flagstaff, 2007
Danny Sherrard wows the crowd at the Applesauce Teahouse in Flagstaff in November 2007
Born in Seattle, Washington on August 29, 1985, Sherrand he won the Individual National Poetry Slam competition in 2007, becoming the youngest competitor at that time to win such a title. In 2008 Sherrard won France's Poetry World Cup where he competed against national champions from 15 countries.
Sherrard was on the Seattle poetry slam teams in 2007 and 2008 and the 2009 HawaiiSlam team.
At the beginning of 2009 Danny Sherrard toured with the spoken word group The Spilljoy Ensemble composed of himself, Jon Sands, Shira Erlichman and Ken Arkind.
Sherrard's first book, "Cast Your Eyes like River Stones into the Exquisite Dark," was released in 2009 through Write Bloody Publishing.
Saturday, March 25, 2023
Lydia Gates, "Changeling"
Lydia Gates represented the Flagstaff Poetry Slam as the Flagstaff Slam Champion at the All-Arizona Slam Championship in Maricopa. She also is the Slam Master for the Flagstaff Poetry Slam. Gates is a queer autistic performance poet and novelist who lives Flagstaff, Arizona with her wife Lucy and their three adorable feline monster children. She is the managing organizer of FlagSlam, a poetry slam in Northern Arizona that was established in 2000. Her poetry collections, "I Was an Empire" (2017), "She Dreams the Moon" (2018), and "Changeling" (2021) are available on Amazon. Gates also writes as Kirke Vincent.
Saturday, March 18, 2023
"A Love Letter to Poets" by Jennifer Weston
Jennifer Weston performing "A Love Letter to Poets" at The Rebel Lounge in Phoenix, on Feb. 16, 2022.
Ghost Poetry Show is committed to creating a community of writers from the greater Phoenix area (and beyond) to share their work on stage. We take pride in having poets that have never performed their work in front of anyone, all the way up to poets that have competed at the national level. No matter gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or age anyone can take the stage and compete in the three round poetry slam.
Saturday, March 11, 2023
Sedona Poetry Slam, in partnership with the Northern Arizona Book Festival, on Saturday, April 1
The penultimate installment of a series is often one the best, and that will be the case as the Sedona Poetry Slam returns for its penultimate slam of the season Saturday, April 1, as an event co-hosted by the annual Northern Arizona Book Festival, happening simultaneously from Friday, March 30, through Sunday, April 2 in Flagstaff.
Performance poets will bring high-energy, competitive spoken word to Sedona's Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m. The winner of the April 1 slam also wins Arizona State Poetry Society's slot for the 2023 BlackBerryPeach National Slam Poetry Competition, hosted by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies in cooperation with the Iowa Poetry Association.
This second annual national championship slam poetry competition will be held in Des Moines, Iowa June 21 through June 26, 2023
A poetry slam is like a series of high-energy, three-minute one-person plays, judged by the audience. Anyone can sign up to compete in the slam for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize. 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.
Slam poetry is an art form that allows written page poets to share their work alongside theatrical performers, hip-hop artists and lyricists. Poets 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. 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.
Mary D. Fisher Theatre is located at 2030 W. SR 89A, Suite A-3, in West Sedona. Tickets are $12. For tickets, call 282-1177 or visit SedonaFilmFestival.org.
The final poetry slam of the season will be held Saturday, May 13.
The prize money is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporters Jeanne and Jim Freeland.
Email foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up early to compete or by the Friday before the slam or at the door the day of the slam. Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive. For more information, visit sedonafilmfestival.com or foxthepoet.blogspot.com.
Northern Arizona Book Festival
The Northern Arizona Book Festival returns with live and virtual programming for all ages, including readings from multiple local and regional authors, poetry slams, workshops and a day of interactive activities and live performances for all ages.
Among the events, spoken word aficionados can see some of the best poets in the state throughout the day on April 1. National Poetry Slam competitors, performance poetry organizers and spoken word artists
Lydia Gates of Flagstaff
Christopher Fox Graham of Sedona
Lauren Perry of Phoenix
MC Tristan Marshell of Phoenix
Cylie Naylor of Phoenix
will host a spoken word roundtable discussion and performance at the Flagstaff Public Library from to 2 to 3:30 p.m. The poets will then come down the hill to Sedona for the poetry slam at 7:30 p.m.
Established in 1997, the Northern Arizona Book Festival is a literary nonprofit based out of Flagstaff. It coordinates readings, panels,workshops, contests, and more that reflect the literary interests and cultural issues that define life on the Colorado Plateau and Northern Arizona. As part of its regular programming, the NOAZBF includes the Indigenous Writers' Symposium, Young Readers' Festival, and the Flagstaff Off-the-Page Lit Crawl. Throughout the year, the NOAZBF collaborates with and supports literary events including the Flagstaff Poetry Slam, Northern Arizona Playwriting Showcase, the Northern Arizona UniversityMFA Program, Cinder Skies Reading Series, Juniper House Reading Series, Off the Rails Poetry Series and numerous small, independent publishers in Northern Arizona.
What is Poetry Slam?
Founded at the Green Mill Tavern in Chicago in 1984 by Marc Smith, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport designed to get people who would otherwise never go to a poetry reading excited about the art form when it becomes a high-energy competition. 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. Slam poets have opened at the Winter Olympics, performed at the White House and at the United Nations General Assembly and were featured on "Russell Simmon's Def Poets" on HBO.
Sedona has sent four-poet teams to represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., Boston, Cambridge, Mass., Oakland, Calif., Decatur, Ga., Denver and Chicago.
BlackBerryPeach
The BlackBerryPeach National Slam Poetry Competition will be held June 21 thought June 26, in Des Moines, Iowa. The National Federation of State Poetry Societies in cooperation with the Iowa Poetry Association is sponsoring the second annual national championship slam poetry competition. Competitors are expected from across the country and will be limited to 40 of the top spoken word poets.
Each of the 33 NFSPS member states will be eligible to enter their best poets in the competition. State poetry societies will select representatives, primarily via competitions held or via other NFSPS approved selection processes. The Sedona Poetry Slam was selected as Arizona's state competition.
A number of entries will be available to recognized slam venues and long standing poetry organizations. The NFSPS advises these poetry entities to send independent competitors have won non-NFSPS sponsored slams in 2023. Long standing poetry venues and organizations will be invited to pay or have their registration confirmed for representatives beginning March 1.
Former BlackBerryPeach Poetry Prize Finalists are eligible to register immediately during the same period as State Poetry Societies. Individual poets can register starting April 1.
Competition Format:
All poems in the competition will have a 3 minute time limit. The grace period for Prelims is 10 seconds. The grace period for Finals Stage is 20 seconds.
Prelims
There will be two venues hosting 2 bouts apiece the first two nights: an early bout from about 6pm to 8pm and a late bout from 8:30pm to 10:30pm. In other words, there will be a total of 4 bouts each of the first two nights, 8 prelim bouts total. The venues will likely be in the host hotel. Up to 10 poets will compete in each bout. There will be two rounds in each bout, with the order in the first round taking place by random draw and the order in the second round determined by first round finish (high score goes first in second round). There will be five (5) judges scoring each poem on a scale of 1 to 10, utilizing one decimal place to give further nuance to the scores. For example, one poem may score a 9 while a slightly better poem may score a 9.1 or 9.2. All five judges will give a score but for prelim purposes the highest score and the lowest score will be dropped. The remaining three scores will be added to give the poet a score for the round. The scores for each of the two rounds will be added together and the highest cumulative score shall be given a ranking of 1, the next highest a ranking of 2, and so on, with the lowest cumulative score awarded a ranking of 10. After 2 nights of prelims, the 12 highest ranked poets (lowest numbers) will advance to the Finals with the 13th highest poet serving as the sacrificial poet to begin finals rounds. Ties for final stage will be broken by comparing the cumulative scores of the poets in question over both days of prelims. If there is still a tie, the dropped judges scores over the two days will be added back in and the resulting new cumulative scores will be compared. If there is still a tie, there will be either an additional poet added to Finals, or a tie break slam held to determine who advances. Poems may not be repeated in any prelim round, including any tie break round.
Finals
Finals will be held on Saturday night in the host hotel. Finals will consist of three rounds. Scores are cumulative for the last two rounds only; the second round will begin with a clean slate. Order in the first round will be by random draw. Order in the second and third round will be determined based on the cumulative scores of the poets, from high score to low score. After the first round, the highest 8 scoring poets progress to the second round. After the second round the top 4 scoring poets advance to the final round. Scores are cumulative for the last two rounds. The highest cumulative scoring poets wins. Poems from prelims may be repeated in the Finals. In case of a tie, the poets may decide to be co-champions or they may do another unscored round judged by the panel.
Prizes
First place prize money will be $2000
Second place prize money will be $1000
Third place prize money will be $500
Fourth place prize money will be $250
Fifth place thru 12th place prize money will be $125
Sacrificial poet will receive $100
Saturday, March 4, 2023
"Some Bullshit" by B Jam, aka Ben Gardea
>Ghost Poetry Show is committed to creating a community of writers from the greater Phoenix area (and beyond) to share their work on stage. We take pride in having poets that have never performed their work in front of anyone, all the way up to poets that have competed at the national level. No matter gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or age anyone can take the stage and compete in the three round poetry slam.