Christopher Fox Graham, managing editor of the Sedona Red Rock News, was declared the winner of the 2021 All-Arizona Poetry Slam on Oct. 9 at Honeycutt Coffee, beating out 13 other artists.
Photo courtesy Kimlye Stager/Pinal Central
Sunday, October 10, 2021
I won the 2021 All-Arizona Poetry Slam
Christopher Fox Graham, managing editor of the Sedona Red Rock News, was declared the winner of the 2021 All-Arizona Poetry Slam on Oct. 9 at Honeycutt Coffee, beating out 13 other artists.
Sunday, October 3, 2021
New Mexico poetry slam icon Damien Flores features at Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, Nov. 13
After the successful return of slam poetry to Sedona in October, the Sedona Poetry Slam proudly welcomes New Mexico slam poetry icon Damien Flores to the stage on Saturday, Nov. 13.
Performance poets will bring high-energy, competitive spoken word to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m. with Flores performing between rounds.
Damien Flores
Flores is an award-winning poet, comedian, author, actor, educator, & radio broadcaster from Albuquerque, N.M.
A two-time National Poetry Slam Champion and two-time College Unions Poetry Slam Champion, he has published three books: “Junkyard Dogs,” “El Cuento de Juana Henrieta,” and “A Novena of Mud.”
Flores and his works have been featured in several anthologies, magazines and newspapers, including Albuquerque the Magazine, Bomb Magazine and El Palacio. He is a past presenter at TEDxABQ, was twice named Poet of the Year by the New Mexico Hispano Entertainers Association and received the Lena Todd Award for Creative Nonfiction from the University of New Mexico.
He produces the monthly open mic and slam called Poetry & Beer as well as the regional invitational Southwest Showdown Poetry Slam and the local ABQ Slams Championship Tournaments. He is also a Radio Free America DJ & hosts the Spoken Word Hour on 89.9 KUNM.
Anyone Can Compete
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 upcoming poetry slams of the season will be held Saturdays, Jan 15; Saturday, March 5, featuring Bernard “The Klute” Schober, of Phoenix; April 23; and May 14.
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.
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 Simmons' 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, October 2, 2021
Sunday, September 12, 2021
Sedona Poetry Slam returns to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 2
After an 18-month hiatus, the Sedona Poetry Slam returns for its 13th season Saturday, Oct. 2. Performance poets will bring high-energy, competitive spoken word to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m.
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 upcoming poetry slams of the season will be held Saturday, Nov. 13, featuring Damien Flores of Albuquerque, N.M.; Saturdays, Jan 15; March 5, featuring Bernard “The Klute” Schober, of Phoenix; April 23; and May 14.
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.
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.
Saturday, September 11, 2021
"They Held Hands" On the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks
"They Held Hands"
For the 200 people who jumped or fell to the deaths
from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001,
and the 2,977 victims.
from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001,
and the 2,977 victims.
On a commonplace Tuesday morning,
not unlike that Sunday morning
60 years before, destined for infamy
they held hands as they fell
It was a working Tuesday
a date on the calendar
a morning like the morning before
but now they found themselves
standing on the window sill
of the 92nd floor
overlooking the city
and they felt weightless
They were not thinking
about the cause-and-effect history
of textbooks and CNN sound bytes
they weren’t debating the geopolitical ramifications leading up to that morning
he had decaf
she had a bearclaw and an espresso
and they talked about Will & Grace
jets impregnated buildings with infernos
and now the fire was burning
and the smoke was rising
and it was getting hard to breathe
even after they smashed the window out
the inferno was swelling
it had reached their floor
their stairwells were gone
and the options now
were to burn
or to fall
when the human animal realizes death is inevitable
psychologists say we want control
over those final moments
choosing suicide over surrender is a healthy reaction
because we choose to accept annihilation
rather than letting it choose us
So on one side
is unbearable heat
roaring flames
acrid smoke
and screams of the suffering
On the other side
fresh air
suicide is the final act of free will
that keeps the consciousness intact
even as it is destroyed
but they were not thinking about psychology
they were not thinking about terrorism
the debate about responsibility,
retaliation,
wars, flags, and Patriot Acts
can wait until September 12th
this morning belongs to them
because they did not have a tomorrow
the true terror of that morning
is to know what they were thinking
as they decided then whether
to burn
or to fall
now, imagine having that conversation
with the stranger
sitting next to you:
The barricade at the door is on firethe extinguisher is empty
we are blinded by the smoke
and on the windowsill of the 92nd floor
we wait until flames lick our clothes
before we lean forward
and choose that moment to fall
others who fell were scrambling
or screaming or on fire
but we held hands as we fell
survivors of falls from extreme heights report
that falls are slow-motion transcendence
and the experience is almost “mystical”
I don’t know if they felt “mystical”
I know it takes1 …
2 …
3 …
4 …
5 …
6 …
7 …
8.54 seconds
to fall
1,144 feet
just enough time to say a prayer
or regret a memory
or ask forgiveness
or say goodbye
or wonder
how the sky
can be so perfectly blue
on such a beautiful morning
Friday, August 20, 2021
In memory of my grandmother, Sylvia Rebie Redfield (December 14, 1925 - July 28, 2021)
My mother's mother, Sylvia Redfield, great-grandmother to my daughter, mother of 7, grandmother to 14, great-grandmother to 15, died just before 8 a.m., Montana Time July 28, 2021, at a hospital in Glasgow, Mont., at age 95.
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| Photo by Jennifer Ray Photography |
My mother Sylvia Redfield Elliott called me from the hospital.
She was diagnosed with cancer this spring, which is why I and mom took Athena Zelda Nebula Skye Sylvia Diana Fox Graham to Montana in June, so she could meet her namesake.
Grandma Sylvia told me four things when we embraced for the last time:
- "I'm happy you came"
- "I wish I had gotten to know Laura better" (she only met my wife once at Christmas in 2017 and once when when we went to pick up a table, when she was still pregnant.)
- "I'm happy I got to meet Athena"
- "Take care of that little girl"
She also said not to look at her because if she saw how I was crying, she would start crying too.
She was funny, always laughing when she told stories.
They met at the USO.
She never gave her number to anyone, but on her last day volunteering there, and my grandfather's first day visiting (he was a veteran of both the US Navy and the US Army, which is a story in itself), she gave him hers, figuring nothing would come of it.
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| Athena met Sylvia for the first time in June and helped make wedding mints. |
He called so many times to ask her out the next day, she said, that her sister just told him to come over in person. They married Dec. 6, 1947.
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| Frank and Sylvia on their wedding day |
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| Grandma shows my mom the wedding dress in June. |
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| Frank and Sylvia with their first of seven children, Georgia. |
She loved literature and poetry, her favorite poet being Langston Hughes, which she said no one would expect given that she was a "little white girl growing up in the segregated South," but she said his work spoke to her. She gave me her hand-annotated "The Selected Poems of Langston Hughes," which she had re-read many times (she had bookmarks at "Sunday Morning Prophesy" "Freedom Train" and "I, Too"). This was a handwritten Hughes poem in the book:
She had an English degree, like me, from Bucknell University. She liked reading my poems and watching me perform slam poetry.
Over the years she sent me dozens of books on all sorts of topics and children's books for Athena.
The small town of Opheim, Mont., will be dedicating its library in her name.
Like Athena, she loved puddles.
May you never have to explain to a 3-year-old why you're crying.
December 14, 1925 - July 28, 2021
Sylvia Rebie Redfield was born to Rebie Sylvia (McElwee) and Frank (Schleif) Slife on December 14, 1925 in Atlanta, Georgia. She passed away July 28, 2021 at the age of 95, in Glasgow, Montana.
She grew up in Atlanta and graduated from Sylvan Girls High School.
She graduated from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania with a major in history and political science and a minor in English.
She had always wanted to be a teacher and taught at a country school in Norcross, Georgia.
While volunteering at a USO she met Frank Redfield, Jr. who was in the Army at the time.
They dated while she was finishing college and were married December 6, 1947.
He moved the city girl to the country in 1948, and their first child was born in Glasgow in 1949.
Later in 1949 they moved back to Atlanta where Frank was a policeman and Sylvia was a housewife — adding four more children to the family.
In 1956, they made the permanent move back to Opheim to run the family farm.
They eventually added two more children.
In 1987, Frank and Sylvia became snowbirds, spending half the year in Chandler, Arizona.
 |
| Grandma and her three sons, Myron, Les and Alan, from left. |
Sylvia moved back to Montana permanently in 2018 when her health started to decline, first living with her daughter, Lisa, and then with her son, Myron and Alice Redfield who were excellent caregivers.
Sylvia touched the lives of hundreds of children through her leadership in 4-H, Sunday school, Bible school, story hour, and as the favorite substitute teacher at Opheim School for many years.
She was an excellent cook and shared not only with her family, but also with friends, relatives, neighbors and lonely GIs from the Glasgow Air Force Base (home of the 476th Fighter Group, 4141st Strategic Wing, 326th Bombardment Squadron and 91st Bombardment Wing from 1957-1976) and Opheim Air Force Station (home of the 779th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron from 1951-1979).
Sylvia was a life-long learner and loved books. She always had a book in her hand or by her side and was often reading two or three books at a time.
She kept a record of the books she read and that total reached over 2,500 books.
 |
| Grandma with my aunts Lisa Theiven and Alice Redfield, and uncles Myron Redfield and Alan Redfield on the floor of the Montana House of Representatives. Alan served two terms as the District 59 representative from 2013 to 2021. Behind them is the 1912 Charles M. Russell painting "Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians at Ross' Hole." Note the snarling dog above the speaker's chair - Russell hated the speaker of the house at the time, so he painted the dog to growl at him. |
She volunteered at the community library and worked in the school library and had her own library at home.
She donated books to the Opheim School library as memorials for community members who had passed away and has donated around 250 books.
She was thrilled to have the library dedicated to her memory.
She was a woman of faith and a Bible scholar and was very active in the United Methodist Church including being a lay pastor.
She was also a member of Eastern Star, WIFE, United Methodist Women and the American Legion Auxiliary.
She loved life and always had a smile or an encouraging word.
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| Grandma's coffin made by my uncle, Alan Redfield, engraved cross made by my cousin, Logan Redfield. |
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| The cross being prepared by my cousin Logan |
Survivors include her seven children: Georgia (Hank) Sheer, Lynn (Al) Cherry, Alan (Laurie) Redfield, Les (Lisa) Redfield, Sylvia Elliott, Myron (Alice) Redfield and Lisa (Marty) Thievin; 13 grandchildren [Jason, Zack, Jodie, Katie, Chase, Haylee, Tatum, Christopher Fox, Nicholas, J.T., Ryan, Logan and Cole]; 15 great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews.
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