This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Odysseus Luke Saturn Langston Lee Calvin Orion Fox Graham's House Crest

  This is the official House Crest of our son, Odysseus Luke Saturn Langston Lee Calvin Orion Fox Graham:

All nine of his names are represented:

Odysseus:

Odysseus ("Ἄρτεμις" in Greek) is a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the "Odyssey," which depicts his 10-year journey home after the events of the "Iliad" in which he also plays a major role.

Odysseus ("Ἄρτεμις" in Greek) is a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the "Odyssey," which depicts his 10-year journey home after the events of the "Iliad" in which he also plays a major role.

Odysseus was the husband of Penelope, father of Telemachus and Acusilaus, renowned for his intellectual brilliance, guile, and versatility, and is thus known by the epithet Odysseus the Cunning. Odysseus was the son of Laërtes, king of the Cephallenians, and Anticlea, the daughter of Autolycus and Amphithea. Laertes was also an Argonaut and a participant in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. According to Homer and Pausanias Autolycus was the son of Hermes, the divine trickster and messenger of the gods.

Odysseus also plays a role in other works in that same epic cycle, the Epikos Kyklos, a collection of ancient Greek epic poems, composed in dactylic hexameter and related to the story of the Trojan War, including:
  • Stasinus' "Cypria," depicting the events leading up to the Trojan War and the first nine years of the conflict, especially the Judgement of Paris
  • Arctinus' "Aethiopis," depicting the arrival of the Trojan allies, Penthesileia the Amazon and Memnon and their deaths at Achilles' hands in revenge for the death of Antilochus as well as Achilles' own death
  • The so-called "Little Iliad" by Lesches, showing events after Achilles' death, including the building of the Trojan Horse and the Awarding of the Arms to Odysseus
  • the Iliu Persis, or "Sack of Troy," by Arctnus, describing the Trojans' reaction to the Trojan Horse, the sack of the city, the deaths of key Trojans and the subsequent punishment of the Greeks by Athena for sacriledge during the sacking.
  • The Nostoi, or "returns," in which Agias or Eumelus describe the return home of the Greek force and the events contingent upon their arrival, concluding with the returns of Kings Agamemnon and Menelaus 
  • "The Telegony," by Eugammon, that tells an alternate ending for Odysseus, wherein he is killed somewhat accidently by his son by Circe, Telegonus, partially fulfilling Tiresias' prophecy in Odyssey 11 that death would come to Odysseus "out of the sea," i.e., from the poison of a stingray on the tip of a spear crafted by Hephaestus, but which contradicts the prophecy of Tiresias, who predicted the Odyssey 11 that a "gentle death" would come to Odysseus "in sleek old age." It's also weird in that after Odysseus' death, Telegonus marries Penelope, Odysseus' widow and Telemachus' mother while Odysseus and Penelope's son Telemachus marries  Circe, who is Telegonus' mother and Odysseus' ex-lover. Only two lines of the poem's original text survive.
The majority of sources for Odysseus' pre-war exploits — principally the mythographers Pseudo-Apollodorus and Hyginus — postdate Homer by many centuries. Two stories in particular are well known:

When Helen of Troy is abducted, Menelaus calls upon the other suitors to honor their oaths and help him to retrieve her, an attempt that leads to the Trojan War. Odysseus tries to avoid it by feigning lunacy, as an oracle had prophesied a long-delayed return home for him if he went. He hooks a donkey and an ox to his plow (as they have different stride lengths, hindering the efficiency of the plow) and (some modern sources add) starts sowing his fields with salt. Palamedes, at the behest of Menelaus' brother Agamemnon, seeks to disprove Odysseus' madness and places Telemachus, Odysseus' infant son, in front of the plow. Odysseus veers the plow away from his son, thus exposing his stratagem.

Odysseus holds a grudge against Palamedes during the war for dragging him away from his home.

Odysseus and other envoys of Agamemnon travel to Scyros to recruit Achilles because of a prophecy that Troy could not be taken without him. By most accounts, Thetis, Achilles' mother, disguises the youth as a woman to hide him from the recruiters because an oracle had predicted that Achilles would either live a long uneventful life or achieve everlasting glory while dying young. Odysseus cleverly discovers which among the women before him is Achilles when the youth is the only one of them to show interest in examining the weapons hidden among an array of adornment gifts for the daughters of their host. Odysseus arranges further for the sounding of a battle horn, which prompts Achilles to clutch a weapon and show his trained disposition. With his disguise foiled, he is exposed and joins Agamemnon's call to arms among the Hellenes.

"The Iliad"

The story covered in Homer's “The Iliad” begins nearly 10 years into the siege of Troy (aka Ilium, hence "Iliad" meaning "epic of Ilium") by the Greek forces, led by Agamemnon, King of Mycenae.

Homer is believed to have written the Iliad and the Odyssey around 850 BCE —  if he existed (Homer might have been a fabricated name to which various the oral stories were attributed) — about the siege 400 years prior, i.e., in the 12th century BCE, around the era of the Late Bronze Age collapse before the Greek Dark Ages.

The Troy in question is archaeologically Troy VI or VIIa, as Troy was built or rebuilt at the same location 10 times between 3,600 BCE and 85 BCE.
The Greeks are quarrelling about whether or not to return Chryseis, a Trojan captive of King Agamemnon, to her father, Chryses, a priest of Apollo.  Agamemnon wins the argument and refuses to give her up and threatens to ransom the girl to her father. In turn, Chryses pleads Apollo to help him, so the offended god plagues the Greek camp with a pestilence.

At the warrior-hero Achilles orders, the Greek soldiers force Agamemnon to return Chryseis in order to appease Apollo and end the pestilence. But, when Agamemnon eventually reluctantly agrees to give her back, he takes in her stead Briseis, Achilles‘s own war-prize concubine. Feeling dishonored, Achilles wrathfully withdraws both himself and his Myrmidon warriors from the Trojan War.

Testing the loyalty of the remaining Greeks, Agamemnon pretends to order them to abandon the war, but Odysseus encourages the Greeks to pursue the fight. During a brief truce in the hostilities between the Trojan and Greek troops, Paris and Menelaus meet in single combat over Helen, while she and old King Priam of Troy watch from the city walls. Despite the goddess Aphrodite’s intervention on behalf of the over-matched Paris, Menelaus wins. After the fight is over, the goddess Athena who favors the Greeks provokes the Trojans to break the truce, and another battle begins.

During the new fight, the Greek hero Diomedes, strengthened by Athena, obliterates the Trojans before him. However, in his blind arrogance and blood-lust, he strikes and injures Aphrodite. Meanwhile, in the Trojan castle, despite the misgivings of his wife, Andromache, the Trojan hero, Hector, son of King Priam, challenges the Greek warrior-hero Ajax to single combat, and is almost overcome in battle. Throughout everything, in the background, the various gods and goddesses (particularly Hera, Athena, Apollo and Poseidon) continue to argue among themselves and to manipulate and intervene in the war, despite Zeus’ specific orders to not do so.

Achilles steadfastly refuses to give in to pleas for help from Agamemnon, Odysseus, Ajax, Phoenix and Nestor, declining the offered honors and riches; even Agamemnon‘s belated offer to return Briseis to him.

In the meantime, Diomedes and Odysseus sneak into the Trojan camp and wreak havoc. But, with Achilles and his warriors out of battle, the tide appears to begin to turn in favor of the Trojans. Agamemnon is injured in the battle and, despite Ajax‘s efforts, Hector successfully breaches the fortified Greek camp, wounding Odysseus and Diomedes in the process, and threatens to set the Greek ships on fire.

Trying to rectify the situation, Patroclus convinced his friend and lover, Achilles, to dress in Achilles‘ own armor and lead the Myrmidons against the Trojans. The first two times Patroclus launches against the Trojans, he is successful, killing Sarpedon (son of Zeus who participated in the war).

Intoxicated by his success, Patroclus forgets Achilles‘ warning to be careful, and pursues the fleeing Trojans to the walls of Troy. He would have taken the city were it not for the actions of Apollo. 

The god of music and the sun, is the first one to strike Patroclus. After that first blow and in the heat of the battle, Hector also finds the disguised Patroclus and, thinking him to be Achilles, fights and (with Apollo’s help) kills him. Menelaus and the Greeks manage to recover Patroclus’s corpse before Hector can inflict more damage.

Distraught at the death of his companion, Achilles then reconciles with Agamemnon and rejoins the battle, destroying all the Trojans before him in his fury. As the 10-year war reaches its climax, even the gods join in the battle and the earth shakes with the clamor of the combat.
"Hector and Achilles" is a 1923-1926 oil on canvas by Sascha Schneider

Dressed in new armor fashioned specially for him by Hephaestus, Achilles takes revenge for his friend Patroclus by slaying Hector in single combat, but then defiles and desecrates the Trojan prince’s corpse for several days.
"The Triumph of Achilles" fresco by Franz von Matsch

Now, at last, Patroclus’ funeral can be celebrated in what Achilles sees as a fitting manner. Hector‘s father, King Priam, emboldened by his grief and aided by Hermes, recovers Hector‘s corpse from Achilles, and “The Iliad” ends with Hector‘s funeral during a 12-day truce granted by Achilles.

After the Iliad

The Trojan War has not yet ended at the close of the Iliad. Homer's audience would have been familiar with the struggle's conclusion, and the potency of much of Homer's irony and foreboding depends on this familiarity. What follows is a synopsis of some of the most important events that happen after the Iliad ends.

The Death of Achilles

In the final books of the Iliad, Achilles refers frequently to his imminent death, about which his mother, Thetis, has warned him. After the end of the poem, at Hector's funeral feast, Achilles sights the beautiful Polyxena, the daughter of Priam and hence a princess of Troy. Taken with her beauty, Achilles falls in love with her. Hoping to marry her, he agrees to use his influence with the Achaean army to bring about an end to the war. But when he travels to the temple of Apollo to negotiate the peace, Paris shoots him in the heel—the only vulnerable part of his body—with a poisoned arrow. In other versions of the story, the wound occurs in the midst of battle.

Achilles' Armor and the Death of Ajax

After Achilles' death, Ajax (Achilles' cousin and next in line for the title of Greatest Greek Warrior) and Odysseus go and recover his body. Thetis instructs the Achaeans to bequeath Achilles' magnificent armor, forged by the god Hephaestus, to the most worthy hero. Both Ajax and Odysseus covet the armor; when it is awarded to Odysseus, Ajax commits suicide out of humiliation.

The Palladium and the Arrows of Heracles

By the time of Achilles' and Ajax's deaths, Troy's defenses have been bolstered by the arrival of a new coalition of allies, including the Ethiopians and the Amazons. 
Achilles killed Penthesilea, the queen of the Amazons, before his death, but the Trojans continue to repel the Achaean assault. The gods relay to the Achaeans that they must perform a number of tasks in order to win the war: they must recover the arrows of Heracles, steal a statue of Athena called the Palladium from the temple in Troy, and perform various other challenges. Largely owing to the skill and courage of Odysseus and Diomedes, the Achaeans accomplish the tasks, and the Achaean archer Philoctetes later uses the arrows of Heracles to kill Paris. Despite this setback, Troy continues to hold against the Achaeans.

The Fall and Sack of Troy

The Achaean commanders are nearly ready to give up; nothing can penetrate the massive walls of Troy. But before they lose heart, Odysseus concocts a plan that will allow them to bypass the walls of the city completely. The Achaeans build a massive, hollow, wooden horse, large enough to hold a contingent of warriors inside. 

Odysseus and a group of soldiers hide in the horse, while the rest of the Achaeans burn their camps and sail away from Troy, waiting in their ships behind a nearby island.


The next morning, the Trojans peer down from the ramparts of their wall and discover the gigantic, mysterious horse. They also discover a lone Achaean soldier named Sinon, whom they take prisoner. As instructed by Odysseus, Sinon tells the Trojans that the Achaeans have incurred the wrath of Athena for the theft of the Palladium. They have left Sinon as a sacrifice to the goddess and constructed the horse as a gift to soothe her temper. Sinon explains that the Achaeans left the horse before the Trojan gates in the hopes that the Trojans would destroy it and thereby earn the wrath of Athena.

Believing Sinon's story, the Trojans wheel the massive horse into the city as a tribute to Athena. That night, Odysseus and his men slip out of the horse, kill the Trojan guards, and fling open the gates of Troy to the Achaean army, which has meanwhile approached the city again. Having at last penetrated the wall, the Achaeans massacre the citizens of Troy, plunder the city's riches, and burn the buildings to the ground. All of the Trojan men are killed except for a small group led by Aeneas, who escapes. Helen, whose loyalties have shifted back to the Achaeans since Paris's death, returns to Menelaus, and the Achaeans at last set sail for home.

After the War

The fates of many of the Iliad's heroes after the war occupy an important space in Greek mythology. Odysseus, as foretold, spends ten years trying to return to Ithaca, and his adventures form the subject of Homer's other great epic, the Odyssey. Helen and Menelaus have a long and dangerous voyage back to their home in Sparta, with a long stay in Egypt. 
In the Odyssey, Telemachus travels to Sparta in search of his father, Odysseus, and finds Helen and Menelaus celebrating the marriage of their daughter, Hermione. 
Agamemnon, who has taken Priam's daughter Cassandra as a slave, returns home to his wife, Clytemnestra, and his kingdom, Mycenae. Ever since Agamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigeneia at the altar of Athena, however, Clytemnestra has nurtured a vast resentment toward her husband. She has taken a man named Aegisthus as her lover, and upon Agamemnon's return, the lovers murder Agamemnon in his bath and kill Cassandra as well. 
This story is the subject of Aeschylus's play Agamemnon. 
Meanwhile, Aeneas, the only great Trojan warrior to survive the fall of Troy, wanders for many years, searching for a new home for his surviving fellow citizens. His adventures are recounted in Virgil's epic Aeneid.

"The Odyssey"

Ten years after the Fall of Troy, and 20 years after the Greek hero Odysseus first set out from his home in Ithaca to fight with the other Greeks against the Trojans, Odysseus’ son Telemachus and his wife Penelope are beset with over a hundred suitors who are trying to persuade Penelope that her husband is dead and that she should marry one of them.

Encouraged by the goddess Athena (Odysseus’ protector), Telemachus sets out to look for his father, visiting some of Odysseus’ erstwhile companions such as Nestor, the king of Pylos; Menelaus, the king of Sparta; and Helen, whose abduction prompted the Trojan War. They receive him sumptuously and recount the ending of the Trojan War, including the story of the wooden horse. Menelaus tells Telemachus that he has heard that Odysseus is being held captive by the nymph Calypso.

The scene then changes to Calypso’s island Ogygia, thought to be modern-day Gozo in the Maltese archipelago, where Odysseus has spent seven years in captivity. 

Calypso is finally persuaded to release him by Hermes and Zeus, but Odysseus’ makeshift boat is wrecked by his nemesis Poseidon, and he swims ashore onto an island.

He is found by the young Nausicaa and her handmaidens and is made welcome by King Alcinous and Queen Arete of the Phaeacians, and begins to tell the amazing story of his return from Troy.
“Odysseus and Nausicaa” by Pieter Lastman

Odysseus tells how he and his twelve ships were driven off course by storms, and how they visited the lethargic Lotus-Eaters with their memory-erasing food, before being captured by the giant one-eyed cyclops Polyphemus (Poseidon’s son), only escaping after he blinded the giant with a wooden stake.
"Odysseus And Polyphemus" is a painting by Arnold Bocklin

Despite the help of Aeolus, King of the Winds, Odysseus and his crew were blown off course again just as home was almost in sight. They narrowly escaped from the cannibal Laestrygones, only to encounter the witch-goddess Circe soon after. Circe turned half of his men into swine, but Odysseus had been pre-warned by Hermes and made resistant to Circe’s magic.

After a year of feasting and drinking on Circe’s island, the Greeks again set off, reaching the western edge of the world. Odysseus made a sacrifice to the dead and summoned the spirit of the old prophet Tiresias to advise him, as well as the spirits of several other famous men and women and that of his own mother, who had died of grief at his long absence and who gave him disturbing news of the situation in his own household.
"Ulysses and the Sirens" is an 1891 oil on canvas by John William Waterhouse

Advised once more by Circe on the remaining stages of their journey, they skirted the land of the Sirens, passed between the many-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, and, blithely ignoring the warnings of Tiresias and Circe, hunted down the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios.
Scylla and Charybdis

For this sacrilege, they were punished by a shipwreck in which all but Odysseus himself drowned. He was washed ashore on Calypso’s island, where she compelled him to remain as her lover.

By this point, Homer's flashback reaches the present and the remainder of the story is told straightforwardly in chronological order.
Any maps of the Odyssey are estimates at best considering it took place in 1250 BCE, but this is a fun one.

Having listened with rapt attention to his story, the Phaeacians agree to help Odysseus get home, and they finally deliver him one night to a hidden harbor on his home island of Ithaca. 
"Athena Appearing to Odysseus to Reveal the Island of Ithaca" by Giuseppe Bottani

Disguised as a wandering beggar and telling a fictitious tale of himself, Odysseus learns from a local swineherd how things stand in his household. Through Athena’s machinations, he meets up with his own son, Telemachus, just returning from Sparta, and they agree together that the insolent and increasingly impatient suitors must be killed. With more help from Athena, an archery competition is arranged by Penelope for the suitors, which the disguised Odysseus easily wins, and he then promptly slaughters all the other suitors.
Odysseus slays the suitors

Only now does Odysseus reveal and prove his true identity to his wife and to his old father, Laertes. 

Despite the fact that Odysseus has effectively killed two generations of the men of Ithaca (the shipwrecked sailors and the executed suitors), Athena intervenes one last time and finally Ithaca is at peace once more.

The Trojan horse, designed by Odysseus, is depicted here:

Luke:

Luke Skywalker was a Tatooine farmboy who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the greatest Jedi the galaxy has ever known. 

Luke Skywalker, a Force-sensitive human male, was a legendary Jedi Master who fought in the Galactic Civil War during the reign of the Galactic Empire. Along with his companions, Princess Leia Organa and General Han Solo, Skywalker served as a revolutionary on the side of the Alliance to Restore the Republic—an organization committed to the downfall of the Galactic Empire and the restoration of democracy. Following the war, Skywalker became a living legend, and was remembered as one of the greatest Jedi in galactic history.

The son of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and Naboo Queen and Senator Padmé Amidala, Luke Skywalker was born along with his twin sister, Leia, in 19 BBY. As a result of Amidala's death and Anakin's fall to the dark side of the Force, the Skywalker children were separated and sent into hiding, with Leia adopted by the royal family of Alderaan while Luke was raised by his relatives on Tatooine. Longing for a life of adventure and purpose, Skywalker joined the Rebellion and began learning the ways of the Force under the guidance of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, whose first apprentice was Luke's own father. 

During the Battle of Yavin in 0 BBY, Skywalker saved the Alliance from annihilation by destroying the Empire's planet-killing superweapon, the Death Star. He continued his training in the years that followed, determined to become a Jedi Knight like his father before him, and found a new mentor in Grand Master Yoda. 

While trying to rescue his friends on a gas mining station on Bespin, he confronted Darth Vader, whom he learned was in fact his father, Anakin Skywalker. In the fight, he lost his lightsaber as his hand was severed.

After his master's death on Dagobah, Skywalker built a new lightsaber.
Skywalker participated in the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, during which he confronted the Sith Lord Darth Vader. With Luke's help, Anakin returned to the light side of the Force by killing Galactic Emperor Sheev Palpatine aka Sith Lord Darth Sidious at the cost of his own life, fulfilling his destiny as the Chosen One.

Following the Battle of Endor, Skywalker trained his sister as a first Jedi apprentice on Ajan Kloss, but Leia ended her training after the birth of her son and seeing his death as a result of finishing her knighthood.

With the Sith's destruction and the subsequent capitulation of the Empire in 5 ABY, Luke Skywalker traveled across the galaxy, searching for knowledge that would aid him in rebuilding the Jedi Order.

Luke training Leia lightsaber combat on Ajan Kloss

One of his apprentices was his sister's son, Ben Solo, who inherited the Skywalker bloodline's raw strength and potential for limitless power. As master and padawan, Skywalker traveled with his nephew and battle the knights of Ren, studied lost Jedi lore, and gathered others to expand their new order's ranks. In 28 ABY, Skywalker, glimpsing the darkness in his padawan, briefly contemplated murdering him, causing Solo to fall to the dark side like Vader before him and destroy his nascent order. The loss of his nephew haunted Skywalker for the rest of his life. In addition, the destruction of his temple and murder of all his students convinced him that the time had come for the Jedi to end. He therefore sought exile on the distant world of Ahch-To, having elected to live out his remaining days as a hermit despite the galaxy's pleas for help during the rise of the First Order.

His solitude was interrupted in 34 ABY, shortly after the fall of the New Republic, resulting in a chain of events that led Skywalker to play one last, momentous role in the conflict between light and darkness. Although he passed away into the Force, his legend would spread throughout the galaxy, rekindling a spark of hope in the enemies of the First Order. Before his death, Skywalker declared that the Jedi Order would not die with him, having trained a final apprentice: the Jakku scavenger known as Rey.

In 35 ABY, Skywalker's spirit communed with Rey during the final days of the war. The Jedi apprentice had exiled herself to Ahch-To, following in Skywalker's example. However, Skywalker urged Rey to confront her grandfather, the resurrected Darth Sidious. Believing he had been wrong, Skywalker told Rey that a Jedi's destiny was to confront fear. Following the Emperor's destruction, the spirits of Skywalker and his sister watched over Rey as she buried their lightsabers in Skywalker's childhood home on Tatooine and adopted the Skywalker name as her own to honor their legacy.

Luke Skywalker's second lightsaber appears in Odysseus Luke Langston Lee Calvin Orion Fox Graham's crest in the same location and same length as Leia Skywalker Organa Solo's lightsaber in Artemis Leia Aurora Claire River Song Éowyn Fox Graham's crest because they are twins.

Saturn: 

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It only has one-eighth the average density of Earth; however, with its larger volume, Saturn is over 95 times more massive.

Saturn is a gas giant composed predominantly of hydrogen and helium. It lacks a definite surface, though it may have a solid core. Saturn's interior is most likely composed of a core of iron–nickel and rock (silicon and oxygen compounds). Its core is surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and finally, a gaseous outer layer. Saturn has a pale yellow hue due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere. An electrical current within the metallic hydrogen layer is thought to give rise to Saturn's planetary magnetic field, which is weaker than Earth's, but which has a magnetic moment 580 times that of Earth due to Saturn's larger size. Saturn's magnetic field strength is around one-twentieth of Jupiter's. The outer atmosphere is generally bland and lacking in contrast, although long-lived features can appear. Wind speeds on Saturn can reach 1,800 km/h (1,100 mph; 500 m/s), higher than on Jupiter but not as high as on Neptune.

Saturn's rotation causes it to have the shape of an oblate spheroid; that is, it is flattened at the poles and bulges at its equator. Its equatorial and polar radii differ by almost 10%: 60,268 km versus 54,364 km. Saturn has an Aphelion of 1,514.50 million km (10.1238 AU) and a Perihelion of 1,352.55 million km (9.0412 AU).


Saturn has a hot interior, reaching 11,700 °C at its core, and radiates 2.5 times more energy into space than it receives from the Sun. Jupiter's thermal energy is generated by the Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism of slow gravitational compression, but such a process alone may not be sufficient to explain heat production for Saturn, because it is less massive.

A persisting hexagonal wave pattern around the north polar vortex in the atmosphere at about 78°N was first noted in the Voyager images. The sides of the hexagon are each about 14,500 km (9,000 mi) long, longer than the diameter of the Earth. The entire structure rotates with a period of 10h 39m 24s (the same period as that of the planet's radio emissions) which is assumed to be equal to the period of rotation of Saturn's interior. The hexagonal feature does not shift in longitude like the other clouds in the visible atmosphere. The pattern's origin is a matter of much speculation. Most scientists think it is a standing wave pattern in the atmosphere. Polygonal shapes have been replicated in the laboratory through differential rotation of fluids.


The rings of Saturn are the most extensive ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometers to meters, that orbit around Saturn. The ring particles are made almost entirely of water ice, with a trace component of rocky material. There is still no consensus as to their mechanism of formation. Although theoretical models indicated that the rings were likely to have formed early in the Solar System's history, newer data from Cassini suggested they formed relatively late.

Although reflection from the rings increases Saturn's brightness, they are not visible from Earth with unaided vision. In 1610, the year after Galileo Galilei turned a telescope to the sky, he became the first person to observe Saturn's rings, though he could not see them well enough to discern their true nature.

The dense main rings extend from 7,000 km (4,300 mi) to 80,000 km (50,000 mi) away from Saturn's equator, whose radius is 60,300 km (37,500 mi). Although the largest gaps in the rings, such as the Cassini Division and Encke Gap, can be seen from Earth, the Voyager spacecraft discovered that the rings have an intricate structure of thousands of thin gaps and ringlets. This structure is thought to arise, in several different ways, from the gravitational pull of Saturn's many moons. Some gaps are cleared out by the passage of tiny moonlets such as Pan, many more of which may yet be discovered, and some ringlets seem to be maintained by the gravitational effects of small shepherd satellites (similar to Prometheus and Pandora's maintenance of the F ring). Data from the Cassini space probe indicate that the rings of Saturn possess their own atmosphere, independent of that of the planet itself. 

There are two main theories regarding the origin of Saturn's inner rings. One theory, originally proposed by Édouard Roche in the 19th century, is that the rings were once a moon of Saturn (named Veritas, after a Roman goddess who hid in a well) whose orbit decayed until it came close enough to be ripped apart by tidal forces (see Roche limit). A variation on this theory is that this moon disintegrated after being struck by a large comet or asteroid. The second theory is that the rings were never part of a moon, but are instead left over from the original nebular material from which Saturn formed.


A more traditional version of the disrupted-moon theory is that the rings are composed of debris from a moon 400 to 600 km in diameter, slightly larger than Mimas. The last time there were collisions large enough to be likely to disrupt a moon that large was during the Late Heavy Bombardment some four billion years ago.

Saturn has 53 known moons with an additional 29 moons awaiting confirmation of their discovery—that is a total of 82 moons. One moon, Titan, comprises more than 96% of the mass in orbit around the planet. The six other planemo (ellipsoidal) moons constitute roughly 4% of the mass, and the remaining 75 small moons, together with the rings, comprise only 0.04%
The major moons of Saturn


Saturn was named for a god in Roman religion and a character in Roman mythology. He was described as a god of generation, dissolution, plenty, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation. Saturn's mythological reign was depicted as a Golden Age of plenty and peace. After the Roman conquest of Greece, he was conflated with the Greek Titan Cronus. Saturn's consort was his sister Ops, with whom he fathered Jupiter (Zeus), Neptune (Poseidon), Pluto (Hades), Juno (Hera), Ceres (Demeter) and Vesta (Hestia).

Langston:

James Mercer Langston Hughes, (Feb. 1, 1902, Joplin, Mo.—May 22, 1967, New York, N.Y.) was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance, the flowering of black intellectual, literary, and artistic life that took place in the 1920s in a number of American cities, particularly Harlem. A major poet, Hughes also wrote novels, short stories, essays, and plays. He sought to honestly portray the joys and hardships of working-class black lives, avoiding both sentimental idealization and negative stereotypes. 

While it was long believed that Hughes was born in 1902, new research released in 2018 indicated that he might have been born the previous year. His parents separated soon after his birth, and he was raised by his mother and grandmother.

After his grandmother’s death, he and his mother moved to half a dozen cities before reaching Cleveland, where they settled. He wrote the poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” the summer after his graduation from high school in Cleveland; it was published in The Crisis in 1921 and brought him considerable attention. 

"The Negro Speaks of Rivers"

I’ve Known Rivers:
I’ve Known Rivers Ancient as the World
And Older than the Flow of Human Blood
through Human Veins
My Soul has Grown Deep like the Rivers
I Bathed in the Euphrates
when Dawns were Young
I Built my Hut Near the Congo
and it Lulled Me to Sleep
I Looked Upon the Nile and
Raised the Pyramids Above It
I Heard the Singing of the Mississippi
When Abe Lincoln Went Down to New Orleans
And I’ve Seen its Muddy Bosom
Turn All Golden in the Sunset
I’ve Known Rivers:
Ancient Dusky Rivers
My Soul has Grown Deep like the Rivers

After attending Columbia University in New York City in 1921 and 1922, he explored Harlem, forming a permanent attachment to what he called the “great dark city,” and worked as a steward on a freighter bound for Africa. Back in New York City from seafaring and sojourning in Europe, he met in 1924 the writers Arna Bontemps and Carl Van Vechten, with whom he would have lifelong influential friendships. Hughes won an Opportunity magazine poetry prize in 1925. That same year, Van Vechten introduced Hughes’s poetry to the publisher Alfred A. Knopf, who accepted the collection that Knopf would publish as The Weary Blues in 1926.

While working as a busboy in a hotel in Washington, D.C., in late 1925, Hughes put three of his own poems beside the plate of Vachel Lindsay in the dining room. The next day, newspapers around the country reported that Lindsay, among the most popular white poets of the day, had “discovered” an African American busboy poet, which earned Hughes broader notice. Hughes received a scholarship to, and began attending, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in early 1926. That same year, he received the Witter Bynner Undergraduate Poetry Award, and he published “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” in The Nation, a manifesto in which he called for a confident, uniquely black literature:

"We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either."

By the time Hughes received his degree in 1929, he had helped launch the influential magazine Fire!!, in 1926, and he had also published a second collection of poetry, "Fine Clothes to the Jew" (1927), which was criticized by some for its title and for its frankness, though Hughes himself felt that it represented another step forward in his writing.

A few months after Hughes’s graduation, "Not Without Laughter" (1930), his first prose volume, had a cordial reception. In the 1930s he turned his poetry more forcefully toward racial justice and political radicalism. He traveled in the American South in 1931 and decried the Scottsboro case; he then traveled widely in the Soviet Union, Haiti, Japan, and elsewhere and served as a newspaper correspondent (1937) during the Spanish Civil War. He published a collection of short stories, "The Ways of White" Folks (1934), and became deeply involved in theatre. His play "Mulatto," adapted from one of his short stories, premiered on Broadway in 1935, and productions of several other plays followed in the late 1930s. He also founded theatre companies in Harlem in 1937 and Los Angeles in 1939. In 1940, Hughes published "The Big Sea," his autobiography up to age 28. A second volume of autobiography, "I Wonder As I Wander," was published in 1956.

Hughes, more than any other black poet or writer, recorded faithfully the nuances of black life and its frustrations. In Hughes’s own words, his poetry is about "workers, roustabouts, and singers, and job hunters on Lenox Avenue in New York, or Seventh Street in Washington or South State in Chicago — people up today and down tomorrow, working this week and fired the next, beaten and baffled, but determined not to be wholly beaten, buying furniture on the installment plan, filling the house with roomers to help pay the rent, hoping to get a new suit for Easter — and pawning that suit before the Fourth of July."

Hughes documented African American literature and culture in works such as "A Pictorial History of the Negro in America" (1956) and the anthologies "The Poetry of the Negro" (1949) and "The Book of Negro Folklore" (1958; with Bontemps). He continued to write numerous works for the stage, including the lyrics for Street Scene, an opera with music by Kurt Weill that premiered in 1947. "Black Nativity" (1961; film 2013) is a gospel play that uses Hughes’s poetry, along with gospel standards and scriptural passages, to retell the story of the birth of Jesus. It was an international success, and performances of the work — often diverging substantially from the original — became a Christmas tradition in many Black churches and cultural centres. He also wrote poetry until his death; The Panther and the Lash, published posthumously in 1967, reflected and engaged with the Black Power movement and, specifically, the Black Panther Party, which was founded the previous year.

Among his other writings, Hughes translated the poetry of Federico García Lorca and Gabriela Mistral. He was also widely known for his comic character Jesse B. Semple, familiarly called Simple, who appeared in Hughes’s columns in the Chicago Defender and the New York Post and later in book form and on the stage. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel, appeared in 1994. Some of his political exchanges were collected as "Letters from Langston: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Red Scare and Beyond" (2016).

Langston Hughes and Sylvia Redfield, our twins' great-grandmother

Hughes was my grandmother's favorite. Sylvia Rebie Redfield (Dec. 14, 1925 - July 28, 2021) is Odysseus and Artemis' great-grandmother (and my maternal grandmother). She had an English degree, like me, but from Bucknell University. She said no one would expect that Hughes was her favorite given that she was a "little white girl growing up in the segregated South," but she said Hughes' work spoke to her. She said she once her heard Hughes read in Atlanta (he taught at Atlanta University starting in 1947). 

A month before she died in 2021, 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 Hughes poem not in the book that grandma included in her own handwriting:


The Cosmogram

In 1921, when the poet Langston Hughes was just 19, his poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” was published. Seventy years later, on what would have been his 89th birthday, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture held a ceremony around the public art installation made in his honor. His ashes were buried in a small vessel beneath the polished terrazzo floor.

The installation, named Rivers, is in the Langston Hughes lobby of the Schomburg Center, a part of the New York Public Library system.

Inspired by Hughes’ poem, the artist Houston Conwill made the memorial to honor Hughes and Arturo A. Schomburg, the library’s namesake. The cosmogram quotes lines from the poem: The final line — ”My soul has grown deep like the rivers” — is in the circle’s center.

Lines flowing through the piece connect the places Hughes and Schomberg were born — Missouri and Puerto Rico — with Harlem. The lines and signs are meant to be a tribute to African ritual ground markings, “weaving a web of connections between people of diverse cultures and backgrounds, the past and the present,” the library says.

The lower half of Odysseus' crest is a river entering the sea, referencing Hughes' poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" with the Schomburg Center's Cosmogram on a bluff above the river's mouth.

Lee: 

Lee is the middle name of Laura's father and Artemis and Odysseus' grandfather Terry Lee Lynn.

Terry is a Apollo Space Program and Moon enthusiast. One the first things we bonded over when Laura introduced us was my poems about space. After our first dinner, I sent him a recording I made July 20, 2012, on the 43rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing when photojournalist Tom Hood and I were invited by Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff to cover a speech by astronaut Neil Armstrong related to the unveiling of the first images recorded by the Discovery Channel Telescope. Terry was 19, just shy of 20, when Armstrong landed.

The recording of Neil Armstrong's speech has some funny lines and beautiful imagery:

“Almost a half-century ago, some astronomers designed an experiment. The idea was deceptively simple: Compute the distance between the Earth and the moon based on the time it would take for a beam of light to travel up to a mirror located on the surface of the moon and to reflect it back to Earth.”
“I wasn’t one of the scientists on this project — I was sort of technician. My job in the experiment was to install the mirror."

“It may not be obvious why anyone would want to measure the distance to the Sea of Tranquility within 11 inches, but we had to have some way of confirming our mileage for our expense account.”
“The mirrors are expected to be busy for many years to come, which gives me enormous satisfaction as a technician on the project.” 

“From the Sea of Tranquility, the Earth hung above me 23 degrees west of the zenith, a turquoise pendant against a black velvet sky.”
“The home of the human species is not inherently restricted to Earth alone. The universe around us is our challenge and our destiny.”

“Thanks to everyone here for being a part in this civilization.”



Neil Armstrong on the moon
It turned out to be Armstrong's last public speech [and second-to-last interview; his last being with an Italian radio station] gave before his death a month later on Aug. 25, 2012.

The video to which he referred at another speech in Australia in 2011:

Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong also left behind an American Flag, a plaque, an olive branch-shaped gold pin, messages from 73 world leaders, a patch from the Apollo 1 mission that, during a training exercise, combusted and killed three American astronauts, and medals in honor of two of the first Soviet astronauts who had died in flight.

Digitally remastered footage of the 1969 Apollo 11 moonwalk:

The video highlights of the three-hour moonwalk include a clearer picture of Neil Armstrong's descent down the stairs of the lunar module, which was taken from the Parkes Radio Observatory and the Honeysuckle Creek tracking station outside Canberra on 21 July 1969 (Australian time).
Buzz Aldrin on the moon

The long-forgotten video footage was uncovered during a decade-long search for the original recordings of the moonwalk, and involved lengthy detective work and clandestine meetings, says astronomer and telescope operator John Sarkissian from the CSIRO at Parkes, who headed up the search.

Like her grandfather, Athena also loves the moon, which I discussed in a poem:

"Hi, Moon" 

By Christopher Fox Graham 

She says “hi, moon,”
like they are old friends.

With every day I spend with her
I wonder if they are

She knows where the moon is in the sky when I do not,
and I have been walking on this earth
compass in hand,
for 40 times her life

The Apollo 11 Plaque left on the lander on the moon
I rarely get lost

yet, she seems to know
where her old friend is
every time we see him

She says hi to the stars
reaches up like she can touch them

I want to explain to her
the distance
of light years

How the balls of fire we see in the sky
are millions of years older than us
And even in our fastest ship
We will never reach them in our lifetime

I want to explain these things her
but she's not old enough to understand the words

And I wonder

if she's right

Because, truthfully,
I do not know the length of a light year

I have read it in books
been told by wiser men and women than me

And I believe them

because that is what we must do
to survive this world:
believe those who study these things
so we can go about our day
living

So I wonder if she's right

If I reach out my hand and say “hi, star”
with the same enthusiasm that she does

Will I hear them speak back?

When they reach through the night sky
when no one else is looking
shake hands with me,
Touch my fingers to theirs?
Say,
“It has been some time since we've spoken.
How are you?
We are doing fine
up here in the night
watching you down there
learning to learn
learning how things grow
feeling how things feel
what gravity is
what knees are

I wonder
if she their ambassador to us
or just another traveler

right now, it doesn't matter
because she's waving hello to the moon again

and I can't prove it
but I swear I saw him wave back

Given Terry's love for the moon and the Apollo mission, we thought adding the lander would be the best way to symbolize "Lee" in Odysseus' name:

Calvin: 

Calvin, named after theologian John Calvin [July 10, 1509, Noyon, Picardy, France-May 27, 1564, Geneva, Republic of Geneva], is the main protagonist of Bill Waterson's comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes," which ran from Nov. 18, 1985, to Dec. 31, 1995. He is highly intelligent, though without any self-discipline or concentration, a 6-year-old boy with a vivid imagination and a habit of getting into trouble and adventure. Because he is perpetually 6 years old, he was born from 1979 to 1989, depending on when the strip was drawn. The comic centers around Calvin's life, his troubles, and his adventures, with Hobbes alongside him as his companion. 

Calvin is characterized by his imagination, philosophy, extensive vocabulary, social awkwardness, and mischievous behavior. Calvin is ill-behaved most of the time. He challenges authority, complains at length and does not see past his own needs and desires. At home, he frequently challenges his parents' authority and complains about the rules he is made to observe. 

Calvin and/or his alter egos appeared in almost every strip of the series ever printed and published, however, there are several strips he does not appear in, those being where his parents — wo are never named — or other side characters reflect on Calvin or recent events (such as Calvin's home being broken into, or Calvin's snowmen). 

  • Spaceman Spiff is the most prominent of Calvin's many alter egos. He is a space explorer who often does battle with aliens, either on foot or in space.
    Spaceman Spiff, "interplanetary explorer extraordinaire," explores the outermost reaches of the universe "by popular request" in a red flying saucer with a bubble canopy. Despite his title as an explorer, he frequently engages in conflict with aliens, sometimes with seemingly far-reaching implications.
    The galaxy in which Spiff travels is a cruel place where Spiff is shot down or captured by ferocious and disgusting aliens (Some aliens, such as the Hideous Blob, do not appear hostile). In reality, these aliens are often people such as Calvin's mother and father or Miss Wormwood.
    Frequently, Spaceman Spiff becomes stranded on an unexplored planet due to alien attacks or merely unexplained malfunctions. Most of these planets seem devoid of advanced civilization, and often have hostile environments or alien predators. Spiff rarely lands on a planet without crashing or experiencing some technological malfunction.
  • Stupendous Man is one of Calvin's many alter egos and an attempted superhero by Calvin. Calvin puts on a red mask and cape which his mom made him, and pretends that other people (mostly the women in his life that he hates) are villains or monsters. When things begin to tilt away from his favor, he takes off the costume, and becomes "mild-mannered millionaire playboy Calvin" (a reference to Bruce Wayne, the secret identity of Batman and Clark Kent, the secret identity of Superman) once more.
    Stupendous Man is Calvin's second most-frequently employed alter ego, even though, according to Calvin, Stupendous Man has only won "moral victories" and not physical ones. He usually gets in trouble.  Stupendous Man is also Calvin's most powerful alter ego, achieving such feats as flying a telescope lens into the atmosphere and turning time back a day. However, these powers are largely wasted, either on supervillains that Stupendous Man cannot defeat or on ultimately futile plans such as getting mild-mannered Calvin another day out of school.
  • Tracer Bullet is a rarely-seen, though recurring, character in Calvin and Hobbes. He is one of Calvin's most prominent alter-egos. A private investigator based on any number of film noir and detective novel clichés, he makes his first appearance in a story arc in which Calvin gets a bowl haircut courtesy of Hobbes. When Calvin was forced to wear a hat to cover his bad haircut, the alter-ego was born, and he would appear in a total of three story arcs.
    His rate is $50 a day plus expenses. However, in his first introduction he claims business is poor, as he has "an office on 49th Street and a nasty relationship with multiple collection agencies". Tracer Bullet is a skilled marksman, and also claims "if business were as good as my aim, I would be on Easy Street."
    Bill Watterson is quoted as saying:
    "Tracer Bullet stories are extremely time-consuming to write, so I don't attempt them often. I'm not at all familiar with film noir or detective novels, so these are just spoofs on the clichés of the genre. Cartoonists don't use black much anymore (the eye, being lazy, is attracted to empty white space, especially when the panels are so small), and we miss some dramatic possibilities that way."
    While Tracer Bullet's narration usually dominated the individual strips he appeared in, his monologues tended to only provide exposition or reflection on previous action. The actual storyline generally would progress through comments by Calvin or any associated characters, almost always in panels featuring the real world of Calvin, not the imagined world of Tracer Bullet.
Hobbes, named for philosopher Thomas Hobbes [April 5, 1588, Westport, Wiltshire, England-Dec. 4, 1679, Derbyshire, England] is the deuteragonist of the comics. He is Calvin's stuffed tiger and best friend, who, from Calvin's perspective, is a live tiger and real as anyone else in the strip. Calvin is very cynical and usually gets annoyed with Hobbes. The interplay between the two title characters, and the question of whether Hobbes was real or not (Watterson said yes, but only Calvin can see that he's alive) is what gave the strip its unique personality that remained mostly untouched during its decade-long run.

As Spaceman Spiff, Calvin appears careening out of the orbit of Saturn:

Orion:

Orion is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world. It is one of the most conspicuous and recognizable constellations in the night sky. It is named after Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology. Orion's seven brightest stars form a distinctive hourglass-shaped asterism in the night sky. Four stars—Rigel, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, and Saiph — form a large roughly rectangular shape, at the center of which lies the three stars of Orion's Belt — Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. Descending from the "belt" is a smaller line of three stars, Orion's Sword, the middle of which is in fact not a star but the Orion Nebula, also known as the hunter's sword.
Many of the stars are luminous hot blue supergiants, with the stars of the belt and sword forming the Orion OB1 Association.

Main Stars

  • Betelgeuse, Alpha Orionis (α Orionis, 624 light years away, apparent magnitude 0.42), is a massive M-type red supergiant star nearing the end of its life. It is the second brightest star in Orion, and is a semiregular variable star. It serves as the "right shoulder" of the hunter it represents (assuming that he is facing the observer). It is generally the eleventh brightest star in the night sky, but this has varied between being the tenth brightest to the 23rd brightest by the end of 2019. The end of its life is expected to result in a supernova explosion that will be highly visible from Earth, possibly outshining the Earth's moon and being visible during the day. This is most likely to occur within the next 100,000 years.
  • Rigel, also known as Beta Orionis (β Orionis, 772 light years away, apparent magnitude 0.18), is a B-type blue supergiant that is the sixth brightest star in the night sky. Similar to Betelgeuse, Rigel is fusing heavy elements in its core and will pass its supergiant stage soon (on an astronomical timescale), either collapsing in the case of a supernova or shedding its outer layers and turning into a white dwarf. It serves as the left foot of Orion, the hunter.
  • Bellatrix is designated Gamma Orionis (β Orionis, 772 light years away, apparent magnitude 0.18) by Johann Bayer. It is the twenty-seventh brightest star in the night sky. Bellatrix is considered a B-type blue giant, though it is too small to explode in a supernova. Bellatrix's luminosity is derived from its high temperature rather than a large radius. Bellatrix marks Orion's left shoulder and it means the "female warrior", and is sometimes known colloquially as the "Amazon Star". It is the closest major star in Orion at only 244.6 light years.
  • Saiph is designated Kappa Orionis  (κ Orionis, 650 light years away, apparent magnitude 2.07) by Bayer, and serves as Orion's right foot. It is of a similar distance and size to Rigel, but appears much fainter. It means the "sword of the giant"
  • Meissa is designated Lambda Orionis (λ Orionis, 1,042 light years away, apparent magnitude 3.47), forms Orion's head, and is a multiple star with a combined apparent magnitude of 3.33. Its name means the "shining one".

Orion's Belt

  • Mintaka is designated Delta Orionis (δ Orionis, 916 light years away, apparent magnitude 2.2), despite being the faintest of the three stars in Orion's Belt. Its name means "the belt". It is a multiple star system, composed of a large B-type blue giant and a more massive O-type main-sequence star. The Mintaka system constitutes an eclipsing binary variable star, where the eclipse of one star over the other creates a dip in brightness. Mintaka is the westernmost of the three stars of Orion's Belt, as well as the northernmost.
  • Alnilam is designated Epsilon Orionis  (ε Orionis, 1,344 light years away, apparent magnitude 1.69) and is named for the Arabic phrase meaning "string of pearls". It is the middle and brightest of the three stars of Orion's Belt. Alnilam is a B-type blue supergiant; despite being nearly twice as far from the Sun as the other two belt stars, its luminosity makes it nearly equal in magnitude. Alnilam is losing mass quickly, a consequence of its size. It is the farthest major star in Orion at 1,344 light years.
  • Alnitak, meaning "the girdle", is designated Zeta Orionis (ζ Orionis, 800 light years away, apparent magnitude 1.88), and is the easternmost star in Orion's Belt. It is a triple star system, with the primary star being a hot blue supergiant and the brightest class O star in the night sky.

Barnard's Loop (catalogue designation Sh 2-276) is an emission nebula in the constellation of Orion. It is part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex which also contains the dark Horsehead and bright Orion nebulae: The big red bow on the left. The stars within the Orion Nebula are believed to be responsible for ionizing the loop. The loop extends over about 600 arcminutes as seen from Earth, covering much of Orion. It is well seen in long-exposure photographs, although observers under very dark skies may be able to see it with the naked eye.




Orion faces off with Taurus, and followed by his hunting dog Canis Major, who is chasing Lepus the Hare. 

Orion and the Pleiades 

Beyond Taurus, if tracing Orion's belt through Aldebaran to the Pleiades Star Cluster (Messier 45).


In Greek mythology, the Pleiades were the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas. He was forced to hold up the sky for eternity, and was therefore unable to protect his daughters. To save the sisters from the hunter Orion, Zeus transformed them into stars. But the story says one sister fell in love with a mortal and went into hiding, which is why we only see six stars.
Similar “lost Pleiad” stories are found in European, African, Asian, Indonesian, American Indian and Aboriginal Australian cultures. Many cultures regard the cluster as having seven stars, but acknowledge only six are normally visible, and then have a story to explain why the seventh is invisible.
Aboriginal Australian stories seem to be much, much older than European contact and there was little contact between most Australian Aboriginal cultures and the rest of the world for at least 50,000 years. Barnaby Norris and Ray Norris, professors with the Western Sydney University's School of Science suggest that because modern humans are descended from people who began migrating from Africa to the far corners of the globe about 100,000 years ago that these stories may predate that migration.

Artemis Program and the Orion Spacecraft

As Odysseus and Artemis grow up, they'll watch the Artemis program, whose primary goal is to return humans to the Moon, specifically the lunar south pole, by 2025. It has 11 launches planned between 2022 and 2033 with Artemis III landing two people on the Moon in 2025.

The Artemis Program will launch the Orion spacecraft to the moon, thus linking Artemis Leia Aurora Claire River Song Éowyn Fox Graham to her twin brother Odysseus Luke Saturn Langston Lee Calvin Orion Fox Graham.

Artemis I Mission Patch

The Artemis program began in December 2017 as the reorganization and continuation of successive efforts to revitalize the U.S. space program since 2009. Its stated short-term goal is landing the first woman on the Moon; mid-term objectives include establishing an international expedition team and a sustainable human presence on the Moon. Long-term objectives are laying the foundations for the extraction of lunar resources, and eventually, make crewed missions to Mars and beyond feasible
The Orion Spacecraft in the Artemis I mission





Odysseus Fox Graham and his sister Athena Fox Graham

The Orion constellation in his crest also connect Odysseus Luke Saturn Langston Lee Calvin Orion Fox Graham to his older sister, Athena Zelda Nebula Skye Sylvia Diana Fox Graham, as it relates to her name "Nebula." Her crest shows the Horsehead Nebula (officially called Barnard 33between the figures of Athena and Diana.
The Horsehead Nebula can be found a short distance from Alnitak, to the lower left of the three stars in Orion's belt.
In infrared, the Horsehead Nebula looks far different. Astronomers used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in 2013 to photograph the iconic Horsehead Nebula in a new, infrared light to mark the 23rd anniversary of the famous observatory's launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.

Looking like an apparition rising from whitecaps of interstellar foam, the iconic Horsehead Nebula has graced astronomy books ever since its discovery more than a century ago. The nebula is a favorite target for amateur and professional astronomers. It is shadowy in optical light. It appears transparent and ethereal when seen at infrared wavelengths. The rich tapestry of the Horsehead Nebula pops out against the backdrop of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies that easily are visible in infrared light.
This video zooms into part of the sky in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter), showing the new infrared Hubble observations of the Horsehead Nebula (otherwise known as Barnard 33). The video ends on a 3D fly-through of the nebula.

The video continues with a scientific visualisation of a flight into the infrared Horsehead. The computer graphics model is intended to be scientifically reasonable, but not fully accurate. 

This new infrared image has been released to celebrate 23 years of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The data in this video come from Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, supplemented by ground-based observations from the European Southern Observatory's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA).

The Orion constellation appears here in Odysseus Luke Saturn Langston Lee Calvin Orion Fox Graham's House Crest, between Saturn and the Trojan horse of Odysseus:


Fox Graham:

For obvious reasons. Not much to add to this one, other than Fox Graham is my middle and last name. Athena and Artemis' last names are also "Fox Graham"

The House Crest Motto:

"Let's Go Exploring"

Odysseus' motto comes from the final strip of "Calvin and Hobbes" on Dec. 31, 1995


Appears here:

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

The Klute features at the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, March 5

With the fourth poetry slam of the season just around the corner, the Sedona Poetry Slam proudly welcomes Arizona slam poetry icon Bernard "The Klute" Schober to the stage on Saturday, March 5. 

Performance poets will bring high-energy, competitive spoken word to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m. with The Klute performing between rounds. 

The Klute

The Klute is Arizona's globetrotting, shark-diving, dive-mastering nerd-slam emeritus host, slam poet. A 10-time National Poetry Slam team member who has represented the cities of Mesa, Phoenix and Sedona, he's made the s National Poetry Slam Semi-Finals stage three times and Group Piece Finals once. 

The author of four published works "Kluteocrypha," "Chumming the Waters," "High-Concept Sci-Fi Horror Mashup!" and "Cap'n Klute's Ocean Almanac," he also manages the YouTube Channel "The Undersea World of the Klute," bringing his poetic take to marine and shark conservation shorts with footage he has filmed from around the world, from the deep Indian Ocean depths of the South African coast, to the shrinking, climate-imperiled islands of the Maldives, to the sunny waters of Philippine Sea. 

Even tempered by the oceans, his political scalpel remains as sharp as ever, and with a target-rich environment such as today's, no one is spared.     

What does Megalodon thinks about extinction? Want to know the epic quest that all Hammerhead sharks take? What do Great White sharks think about Discovery Channel cameramen? 

Find out about all this and more at Sedona, on March 5 at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre!


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, 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.

Monday, February 14, 2022

"Are you meditating on virginity?" performed by Sacha Dhawan

 
Sacha Dhawan delivers an edited version of Parolles’s lines from the first scene of "All’s Well That Ends Well." Parolles urges Helena to consider the importance of losing one’s virginity.


from "All's Well That Ends Well," spoken by Parolles

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Are you meditating on virginity?
Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be
blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with
the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It
is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to
preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational
increase and there was never virgin got till
virginity was first lost. That you were made of is
metal to make virgins. Virginity by being once lost
may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is
ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion; away with 't!
... 'tis against the
rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity,
is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallible
disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin:
virginity murders itself and should be buried in
highways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate
offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites,
much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very
paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach.
Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of
self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the
canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but loose
by't: out with 't! within ten year it will make
itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the
principal itself not much the worse: away with 't!


Saturday, January 15, 2022

"All the world’s a stage," performed by Benedict Cumberbatch

Benedict Cumberbatch performs William Shakespeare’s "As You Like It," the sad Jacques delivers these lines as a monologue in Act II, Scene VII. The monologue is centered on a conceit comparing life to a play. Jacques borrows this conceit from Duke Senior, who remarks after learning of Orlando’s misfortunes that:

This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in

Jacques, renowned for his cynical wit, immediately responds by blowing this conceit out of proportion. According to Jacques, man essentially plays seven parts in his lifetime:
  1. The helpless infant
  2. The whining schoolboy
  3. The emotional lover
  4. The devoted soldier
  5. The wise judge
  6. The clueless old man
  7. The corpse
from "As You Like It," spoken by Jacques

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Sedona Poetry Slam kicks off 2022 with a slam on Jan. 15

With 2021 in the rearview and 2022 on the horizon, the Sedona Poetry Slam enters its 14th year of performance poets bringing high-energy, competitive spoken word to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre starting at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15.

Damien Flores, of Albuquerque, performs at the Sedona Poetry Slam in November. A published author and teacher, Flores was the guest featured poet between competitive rounds.

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. 

Kate Martin, of Flagstaff, performs at the Sedona Poetry Slam in November.

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 Sedona Poetry Slam held two competitions in October and November. The upcoming poetry slams of the season will be held Saturdays, March 5, featuring Bernard "The Klute" Schober, of Phoenix; April 23; and Saturday, May 14.

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

Lydia Gates, of Flagstaff, performs at the Sedona Poetry Slam in November. The slammaster of the Flagstaff Poetry Slam, Gates took second place.

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.



Sunday, November 14, 2021

"When She Asks About the Photo ..." by Christopher Fox Graham


When she asks about the photo
do not tell her that is her great-grandma
the woman she just met weeks ago
for the first time
the woman whose name she shares
whose blood beats in your mother's heart
in your heart
and in hers
who held her weeks ago
taught her how to pet a dog
gently
so he would not nip at her fingers
who gave her Teddy Grahams
in a Ziploc bag
when she asked you, daddy, for a snack
she was always giving that way
do not confirm who the woman in the photo is


she already knows
because her heart beats the same blood
as your heart
as your mother's
and great-grandma's

blood knows blood
despite the distance between computer screens
DNA is a helix handshake defying the digital
wrapping through history 
but she will ask still
and you will tell her


When she asks why great-grandma is in the hospital
do not tell her great-grandma is dying
the woman she just met weeks ago
you knew she was dying
that's why you went
why you boarded the plane with your mother
and your daughter
drove across the wide open
that is Montana
sailing the seas of field peas, mint, lentils, flax, safflower
to the wheat fields that made your family


her dying
is why you came
so they could meet
Sylvia Rebie, meet Athena Sylvia 
four generations 95 years apart
say hello and goodbye
in the same breath
one of you beginning
one of you nearing the end


she doesn't ask why we are here
why Montana is
why Arizona is away
why your wife stayed there and did not come
your wife, she cares too much
would want to help
but there is no rescue here, no salvation
you want this to burn, to hurt, to cut deep
to scar over
you want to bleed into this soil, this farm, this homestead
these Redfields


leave part of you in this dirt
where you never lived
but to where you are bound
and when they ask
this is where you are really from


we are here to say goodbye
your daughter does not know this
it's why great-grandma asked us to come
but your daughter does not know this



your daughter only knows the green
open fields with no fences
dogs playing fetch, gophers evading
pronghorn leaping over fences
deer that rarely see cars on these roads
flowers whose names you do not know
but would if you had grown up here


your daughter would run for days
if you were not here to chase her
across the ranches and farms
that have fed your family
that shared the same blood and womb


so you pretend you're not here
for the reason you're here
wasting breath fighting fate

instead
listen to the stories
ask about the photographs
accept the books she wants you to take home
take photos of them together


so years from now
when she asks about her name
why she likes puddles
how she learn to pet a dog gently
so he would not nip at her fingers
you can point back to this and remind her
of her legacy



let her earn these memories
let great-grandma laugh with one more great-granddaughter
so no hill can hinder that sound 
echoing from horizon to horizon
it's why Eastern Montana so is perfectly flat


just over the border
Death glows in the red sunset, 
waiting
but in Montana, 
even Death 
must take his time


When she asks about the photo
do not tell her without speech
that is someone she knows 
dying
you don't have to
you are sobbing 
without speech
words evicted from your throat
she knows this burns, 
this hurts, 
this cuts deep
because you left your blood and tears in the soil
at the homestead,
in the Redfields
where you are all really from
she learns shared blood makes fathers cry

but she doesn't know Death
he is still just a red sunset
instead she knows the green
the wheat fields
the dogs, the deer, the red barn
dancing at her cousin's wedding
the old woman always laughing
she is where your daughter is really from


When she asks about the photo
don't tell her that is family
dozens bound by wombs and rings
don't tell her great-grandma is there 
beneath them
in the soil next to Papa
where you are all really from



don't waste breath fighting fate
her heart beats the same blood
but now she knows 
where she is really from



"Dear Daughter" by Christopher Fox Graham

 

Dear daughter,
for the last three and a half years 
you, your mother and I have been 
a trifecta of awesome
you the cataclysm
your mother the emergency response
and me the PR department

I cannot predict you
nor aid in the recovery
like your mother
I merely tell strangers, “it could be worse
“be thankful this is as bad as it was 
“this is the damage you can expect to see
“now, go and tell your relatives you survived
“warn them of what's on the horizon”

for three and a half years 
you have been the center of our world
now, two planets will emerge from the darkness
twin stars rising above the horizon 
a pair of orbs to orbit alongside you
I am sorry you are no longer solo
but I am not sorry you are no longer solo

your mother is doing all the labor
I only assisted
I am the RBI
Mission Control
riding shotgun on this out of control stagecoach 
off the cliff of having twins

You have not gained competitors
nor enemies 
but co-conspirators
allies in your little girl revolution
fellow doombringers
heart pirates
hunters on the savanna
warships in a squadron
raining down hellfire at range

Athena wasn't alone either
after she sprang fully arm'd and armor'd
from the mind of Zeus
Hera bore her siblings, too
you will be a trifecta, granddaughters of Chaos

We have gone from trio to quintet 
we do not count by even numbers in this house
me alone, then your mother and you
then the twins
We are a Fibonacci family

we do not yet know who or what they will be
but if, like you
they are equal weights of metric-level amazing
I can only imagine you'll love them as much as we do

they will not be strangers
but as more you, than I am
after all, they're only half me,
half your mother
but you and they share more DNA
and in the end the three of you are more the same
than I and your mother are
keep this in mind
they are not opponents to counter
but allies to co-opt
so do not be jealous
we are having them 
because you are too awesome to be alone
they exist because you were a victory
that needed replication
they are your echoes
evidence of your success

you are first and always will be
I love you singularly for all the days of your life
instead, imagine them in their differences as 
sidekicks
wingmen
your accomplices
Jedi padawans or Sith apprentices
the double-barreled Boomstick
to your Ash Williams
Companions to your Doctor Who,
yes, my blue pickup is the TARDIS

but when in time
your mother and I spent our last
and we are no more
when we are ash and worm's meat
you and they will be what remains
not echoes
nor sequels
nor reimaginings
nor remakes
but the copyedited versions of our rough drafts
new testaments to the old religions
you are the sins forgiven
the word made flesh
the dreams come true
the better versions
of what we wish we were


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. 
Photo courtesy Kimlye Stager/Pinal Central

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.


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 fire
the 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 takes

1 …

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