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.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Arizona's top 12 compete to join Sedona's National Poetry Slam Team on May 28

On Saturday, May 28, the best poets in Arizona will compete in the 2016 Sedona Poetry Grand Slam, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m. at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre, 2030 W. State Route 89A, Suite A-3. The event is the biggest poetry slam of the year because the winners will go on to the national competition. Poets competed at six slams over the last eight months, earning points through wins just to be able to compete on the Grand Slam stage.

The slam is the climax the 2016 season, when the audience will select the foursome and alternate to officially represent Sedona and the Verde Valley at the National Poetry Slam in Decatur, Ga., in August. Poets in the slam come from as far away as Phoenix and Flagstaff, competing against adult poets from Sedona, college poets from Northern Arizona University, and youth poets from Sedona Red Rock High School's Young Voices Be Heard slam group.

Sedona sent its first team to the 2012 National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., its second to the 2013 NPS in Boston and Cambridge, Mass., and its third and fourth to Oakland last two years.

The Sedona Poetry Grand Slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on 10 FlagSlam National Poetry Slams between 2001 and 2016.Graham has hosted the Sedona Poetry Slam since 2009.

Some of the 12 top poets who will compete on June 6 include:

Josh Wiss

Josh Wiss is a 25-year-old poet who is bound to a lifestyle constant creativity. He attended his first poetry slam in fall 2010 and has been addicted to the art form ever since. A self-proclaimed “feeler,” Wiss lives life riding the oscillating waves of a water sign. He has dedicated his life to embracing the purity of existence and trying to transcribe experiences through a variety of expressive mediums. Whether he is plucking ukulele strings, painting vibrant panels or pouring poetry onto pages, Wiss attempts to completely envelop himself in each of his works.
His poetry is raw and often reflects an optimistic side of his personality. Obsessed with bold colors and blowing bubbles, a childlike energy inhabits his performances. Wiss has been to the National Poetry Slam on both the Sedona and Flagstaff teams in previous years.
 

Evan Dissinger

Evan Dissinger is 25 years old and currently living in West Sedona. He has been involved with slam poetry since 2008 and has been on three national teams; 2008 with FlagSlam and again in 2012 and 2015 as a member of team Sedona.
Dissinger lives with one cat and is often found hunched over a canvas or cruising on a skateboard when not at his restaurant day job.
Dissinger is an inquisitive Aquarius with a unique interpretation of the world around him. Dissinger caries a timid boldness that can be found reflected in his art.

The Klute aka Bernard Schober

Phoenix-area crackpot Jerome du Bois once said of The Klute: "You have one of the blackest hearts I've ever had the misfortune to glimpse," so in 2007, The Klute received an upgrade.
With the implantation of a freestyle bioprosthesis, The Klute now has "superior flow characteristics." His heart remains blacker than ever.
The Klute, part man, part machine, all of him sarcastic, is a fixture of the Arizona poetry scene, having been on five National Slam Poetry Teams from Mesa (2002-2003, 2005-2006, and 2010) and five from Phoenix (2008-2009, 2012-2014), and is the winningest slam poet in the state.
He has been published in anthologies by Write Bloody and Sergeant Press. He's a one-man psy-ops campaign bringing the system down from inside. He buys low and sells high. He keeps the Grim Reaper on speed dial and his absinthe on ice.

Rowie Shebala

Roanna "Rowie" Shebala, a Native American spoken word artist, of the Diné – Navajo – Tribe was born and raised on the Navajo Nation.
"Yá’át’ééh shik’éí dóó shidine’é
Shí éí Roanna Shebala yinishyé
Tsé Ńjíkiní nishłį́
Deeshchii’nii bashishchiin
Too'soni' dashicheii
Naasht’ézhí dashinalí"
Given the gift of storytelling from her father she combines story, poetry, and performance.
Shebala constantly brings the voice of her heritage into her performance, and written work often treading into spaces where hearing native voices is unlikely.
In doing so, she hopes to reframe what it means to be a Native person for the masses, point out the appropriation of her people's culture, and reclaim an identity that has perverted by heavily edited versions of history, the invisibilization of indigenous peoples today, and the use of those people as caricatures for mass amusement. Shebala represented Sedona at the Women of the World Poetry Slam last year and performed as a featured guest poet at New York City's Lincoln Center in August.

Valence

Tyler "Valence" Sirvinskas is a performance poet and new media artist based in Arizona.
Spoken word, performance art, electronic music, and visual art are all elements of Valence's artistic vision. In 2011, he began competing in poetry slams, and represented Flagstaff at the 2011 National Poetry Slam. In 2012, he won the Sedona Grand Slam, and in 2013 secured a spot on the Sedona National Poetry Slam Team.
Valence has lived in Arizona for the last decade, but was born in and spent his childhood in Chicago. Part of the last generation to know first-hand what life was like before the internet, Valence is grateful for anything that makes people silence their smartphones.
In the future, Valence has plans for touring, various projects, and a new style of performance art that combines spoken word with live video and music. At only 24 years of age, he's still somewhat green but definitely done screwing around.

Kaycee Pearson

A recent graduate of Sedona Red Rock High School, Kaycee Pearson is the younger sister of Claire Pearson, who has been on three Flagstaff National Poetry Slam teams, in 2014, 2015 and 2016, and represented Flagstaff at the Women of the World Poetry Slam. Kaycee Pearson is equally talented and recently had her poetry published in "Petrogyphs: Lucid Dreams," the annual SRRHS literary book. "It wouldn't be a Sedona Poetry Slam without a Pearson at the helm," Graham said.
 

Other poets may include Gary Every, Jess Ballantyne, Tara Aitken, Robert Chandler Gonzales, Taylor Marie, Kenny Kreslake, Diana Stoneberg and Lauren Perry.


FlagSlam team members will perform between rounds at the Sedona Poetry Grand Slam. Tickets are $12.

Slam poetry is an art form that allows written page poets to share their work alongside theatrical performers, hip-hop artists and lyricists. While many people may think of poetry as dull and laborious, a poetry slam is like a series of high-energy, three-minute one-person plays.

All types of poetry are welcome on the stage, from street-wise hip-hop and narrative performance poems, to political rants and introspective confessionals. Any poem is a "slam" poem if performed in a competition. All poets get three minutes per round to entertain their audience with their creativity. The poets will be judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam.

At Nationals, the Sedona National Poetry Slam Team will share the stage with 300 of the top poets in the United States, Canada and Europe. While the highlight of the event in the competition, the week is filled with writing workshops, featured performances, themed readings and a handful of "underground" poetry competitions.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Sedona Poetry Grand Slam




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

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

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

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

"nothing"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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







2016 © Christopher Fox Graham

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Penultimate Sedona Poetry Slam takes place on Saturday, May 7


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

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

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

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

To compete in the slam, poets will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted. The poets are judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam. Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is Poetry Slam?

Slam poetry is an art form that allows written page poets to share their work alongside theatrical performers, hip-hop artists and lyricists. While many people may think of poetry as dull and laborious, a poetry slam is like a series of high-energy, three-minute one-person plays. All types of poetry are welcome on the stage, from street-wise hip-hop and narrative performance poems, to political rants and introspective confessionals. Any poem is a “slam” poem if performed in a competition. All poets get three minutes per round to entertain and inspire the audience with their creativity.

Founded in Chicago in 1984 by construction worker Marc Smith, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport. Poetry slams are judged by five randomly chosen members of the audience who assign numerical value to individual poets’ contents and performances. Poetry slam has become an international artistic sport, with more than 100 major poetry slams in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe.

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


Marc Kelly Smith performing "Kiss It."


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


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