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.
Showing posts with label Necessary Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Necessary Poetry. Show all posts

Saturday, April 20, 2013

National Poetry Month: Valence performs "Tonight"




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 a spot on Sedona’s National slam team.

Valence has lived in Arizona for eight years, 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 turn off their smartphones.

In the future, Valence has plans for touring, albums, books, and a new style of performance art that combines spoken word with live video and music. At only twenty-two years of age, his creative development has only begun.

At only 21 years of age, his creative development has only begun.

Like Valence and performance poetry? 
Donate to "Holy Spoken Word," Necessary Poetry's 1st Anthology:
A multimedia anthology, showcasing the amazing writing, artwork, and spoken-word performance of the Necessary Poetry collective, a group of poets from Sedona, Flagstaff and Prescott.



Click here to help support our efforts on Kickstarter. A donation of even $10 or $20 gets us closer to our goal of our first publication and establishment of a nonprofit spoken word collective open to all.

National Poetry Month: Ashley Swazey performs "Invincible"




Ashley Swazey is an aspiring wedding photographer studying photography at Northern Arizona University. She’s 19 and has been writing angst poetry before she was a teenager. She has her own photography business and loves to sing, sew, and create.

Fun fact: Swazey made her own prom dress. She’s obsessed with seafoam green and has obnoxiously red hair that bleeds in the shower.

She went to Arizona State University for a year and a half, before realizing she hated everything about it.

Another fun fact: Swazey has a pet snake.

She hopes to live in Seattle when she grows up and she wants to adopt a baby from Africa.

Swazey’s mother is a flight attendant so she can fly anywhere practically for free. She likes to brag about having been to Ireland, London, Paris, Rome, Venice, Vienna, Austria, Prague, Czech Republic, and Germany.

Last fun fact: Swazey is often told she resembles Julia Styles, a comment she detests.

Swazey is very involved in the speech and debate scene, having participated for two years in high school and coached for a year and a half in college. This is where she discovered the art of slam poetry.

She began writing and performing her own poems in competition, which is incidentally completely against the rules. But she only lives once.

Like Ashley Swazey and performance poetry? 
Donate to "Holy Spoken Word," Necessary Poetry's 1st Anthology:
A multimedia anthology, showcasing the amazing writing, artwork, and spoken-word performance of the Necessary Poetry collective, a group of poets from Sedona, Flagstaff and Prescott.



Click here to help support our efforts on Kickstarter. A donation of even $10 or $20 gets us closer to our goal of our first publication and establishment of a nonprofit spoken word collective open to all.

Friday, April 19, 2013

National Poetry Month: Verbal Kensington performs "Earthquakes"



With a background ranging the spectrum from accounting to pyrotechnics, Meg (Verbal) Kensington shamelessly abandoned her previous brainchild, Verballistics, to step into her role as Necessary Publishing’s Creative Director. She’s also a writer, poet, artist, and mentor. Others know her as a verbal mercenary, with an uncanny knack for organization. Her most valued achievements include the ability to speak unabashedly in the third person, the precise calculation of road-trip gas mileage in her beloved vintage Subaru, and the unobtrusive creation of an amazing array of late-night snacks. She aspires to become more like her favorite animal, the platypus – the only earthly creature who is both astonishingly cuddly, and horrendously poisonous.

With her unique combination of extreme intelligence and stunning good looks, she plans to one day take over the world – starting today, with Necessary Publishing.

Like Verbal Kensington and performance poetry? 
Donate to "Holy Spoken Word," Necessary Poetry's 1st Anthology:
A multimedia anthology, showcasing the amazing writing, artwork, and spoken-word performance of the Necessary Poetry collective, a group of poets from Sedona, Flagstaff and Prescott.



Click here to help support our efforts on Kickstarter. A donation of even $10 or $20 gets us closer to our goal of our first publication and establishment of a nonprofit spoken word collective open to all.

National Poetry Month: Austin Reeves performs "Thing Like Love"



Austin Reeves is a 19-year-old Flagstaff poet studying to become an English professor. Born in Washington state at the height of the grunge movement — and quality ’90s music, Reeves moved to Arizona when he was 7. Then he was moved back to Washington. Then he was moved back to Arizona.

Having lived in and around the Phoenix area for far too long, Reeves opted to attend college at Northern Arizona University — a wise choice, he thinks.

It was in Flagstaff that Reeves truly discovered poetry, having dabbled in it at times before. Joining up with the FlagSlam and Sedona Slam family in late 2011, Reeves placed second in the last slam of the Sedona Poetry Slam season and went on to compete in Sedona’s Poetry Grand Slam, narrowly missing out on making the first-ever Sedona National Poetry Slam Team. In 2013, Reeves is back for blood and doing his best to systematically *cough* remove his rivals from the competition.

So far, Reeves has already established himself as Flagstaff’s 2012-2013 Haiku Death Match Champion. Austin won Flagstaff’s 2012-2013 Haiku Death Match in his underwear. Real stuff.

Reeves takes the greater majority of his inspiration from national slam poets Buddy Wakefield and Anis Mojgani.

Reeves is a guitarist, singer and drummer for Tempe-based post-rock band Ursus Colossus, with whom he has recorded two full-length albums. He has also been recorded on a number of tracks for Phoenix-based alternative rock band The Upper Strata. Reeves finds his musical inspiration in the bloodline of his musically inclined family. He also tries his hand at visual art forms occasionally. Currently, Reeves is attempting to make his way back into skateboarding and to make a hobby of electronic music production with Ableton, a musical performance and production software.

Reeves believes in poetry, music and art always.

Like Austin Reeves and performance poetry? 
Donate to "Holy Spoken Word," Necessary Poetry's 1st Anthology:
A multimedia anthology, showcasing the amazing writing, artwork, and spoken-word performance of the Necessary Poetry collective, a group of poets from Sedona, Flagstaff and Prescott.



Click here to help support our efforts on Kickstarter. A donation of even $10 or $20 gets us closer to our goal of our first publication and establishment of a nonprofit spoken word collective open to all.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Kickstarter challenge: $20 by April 20


Kickstarter Challenge: If you haven't yet a donated to Necessary Poetry's Kickstarter project, donate $20 by Saturday, April 20.

$20 ain't much and it could do so much.

Why give? 'Cause the project is awesome. Check it out here:


Then ask 20 of your friends to to the same.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Frank O'Brien wins the sixth Sedona Poetry Slam of the 2012-13 National Poetry Slam Season

Frank O'Brien wins the sixth Sedona Poetry Slam of the 2012-13 National Poetry Slam Season.

Round 1
Random Draw


Calibration: Christopher Fox Graham, of Sedona

Frankie Marchi, of Phoenix, 2:28, 23.3
MacKenzi Taylor, of Sedona, 2:34, 24.8
Josh Floyd, of Flagstaff, 1:49, 21.6
James Gould, of Sedona, 3:03, 25.1
Frank O'Brien, of Prescott, 2:34, 27.3
Spicy Jack, of Flagstaff, 3:01, 21.9
Verbal Kensington, of Flagstaff, 3:16, 27.4 (after 0.5 point time penalty)
Jackson Morris, of Flagstaff, 2:42, 23.0
Josh Wiss, of Flagstaff, 1:49, 24.6

Teaser: Christopher Fox Graham, of Sedona

Round 2
Reverse Order


Josh Wiss, of Flagstaff, 1:50, 27.0, 48.9
Jackson Morris, of Flagstaff, 2:42, 26.6, 49.6
Verbal Kensington, of Flagstaff, 1:54, 26.2, 53.1
Spicy Jack, of Flagstaff, 2:00, 23.0, 44.9
Frank O'Brien, of Prescott, 2:50, 26.9, 54.2
James Gould, of Sedona, 3:09, 25.6, 50.7
Josh Floyd, of Flagstaff, 1:41, 25.0, 46.6
MacKenzi Taylor, of Sedona, 3:12, 27.5, 51.8
Frankie Marchi, of Phoenix, 2:17, 26.7, 50.0

Feature: Necessary Poetry Poets

The April 13 poetry slam featured many of the 15 poets involved in the Necessary Poetry project, a collective of 15 of the best performance poets in Northern Arizona. Necessary Poetry is currently raising money to publish its first anthology of poetry, which will include a printed book and an online version complete with high-quality video, audio versions of poetry put to music and visual arts by some of Northern Arizona best contemporary artists to enhance the poetry.

The Necessary Poetry collective will use its funds to host workshops for students, youth and seniors around Northern Arizona. For more information on the project and goals, visit Necessary Poetry, Necessary Publishing


 Features: Valence, of Flagstaff
Christopher Fox Graham, of Sedona
Evan Dissinger, of Flagstaff

Round 3
High to Low

Frank O'Brien, of Prescott, 2:40, 26.7, 80.9
Verbal Kensington, of Flagstaff, 4:06, 24.2 (after 3.0 point time penalty), 77.3
MacKenzi Taylor, of Sedona, 3:16, 27.0 (after 0.5 point time penalty), 78.8
Josh Wiss, of Flagstaff, 2:21, 27.3, 78.9
James Gould, of Sedona, 2:50, 26.8, 77.5
Frankie Marchi, of Phoenix, 2:01, 25.7, 75.7
Jackson Morris, of Flagstaff, 2:12, 24.8, 74.4
Josh Floyd, of Flagstaff, 2:08, 25.7, 72.3
Spicy Jack, of Flagstaff, 1:54, 24.8, 69.7

Victory: Frank O'Brien, of Prescott

Final Scores

Frank O'Brien, of Prescott, 80.9

Josh Wiss, of Flagstaff, 78.9

MacKenzi Taylor, of Sedona, 78.8

James Gould, of Sedona, 77.5
Verbal Kensington, of Flagstaff, 77.3
Frankie Marchi, of Phoenix, 75.7
Jackson Morris, of Flagstaff, 74.4
Josh Floyd, of Flagstaff, 72.3
Spicy Jack, of Flagstaff, 69.7

Sedona National Poetry Slam Team
Slamoff Point Standings
15 points
Josh Wiss, of Flagstaff✓✓
9 points
Ryan Brown, of Flagstaff✓✓
The Klute, of Phoenix
8 points
Christopher Fox Graham, of Sedona
Evan Dissinger, of Flagstaff
Jackson Morris, of Flagstaff
7 points
Joy Young, of Phoenix
4 points
Frank O'Brien, of Prescott✓
Leo Bryant, of Richmond, Calif.✓
3 points
Charles Levett, of Phoenix
Jeremiah Blue, of Phoenix
2.5 points
Josh Floyd, of Flagstaff
Valence, of Flagstaff
2 points
Ashley Swazey, of Phoenix
Austin Reeves, of Flagstaff
Bert Cisneros, of Cottonwood
Gary Every, of Sedona
Lauren Perry, of Phoenix
Lynn Gravatt, of Sedona
MacKenzi Taylor, of Sedona
1.5 points
Taylor Hayes, of Flagstaff
Verbal Kensington, of Flagstaff
1 point
Bill Campana, of Mesa
Bradley Blalock, of Sedona
Frankie Marchi, of Phoenix
Houston Hughes, of Fayetteville, Ark.
Jackie Stockwell, of Flagstaff
James Gould, of Sedona
Jasmine "Jazz" Sufi Wilkenson of Santa Cruz, Calif.
Jordan Ranft, of Santa Rosa, Calif.
Ky J. Dio, of Flagstaff
Lauren Deja, of Phoenix
Little Blue Lyon-Fish, of Phoenix
nodalone, of Flagstaff
Robert Gonzales, of Flagstaff
Rowie Shebala, of Phoenix
Slammy D, of Flagstaff
Spicy Jack, of Flagstaff
Susan Okie, of Washington, D.C.
Tom Lamkin, of Chicago
Vincent Vega, of Flagstaff

✓ = won a Sedona Poetry Slam

Support Arizona poets during National Poetry Month: Ashley Swazey, "PEMDAS"




Ashley Swazey is an aspiring wedding photographer studying photography at Northern Arizona University. She’s 19 and has been writing angst poetry before she was a teenager. She has her own photography business and loves to sing, sew, and create.

Fun fact: Swazey made her own prom dress. She’s obsessed with seafoam green and has obnoxiously red hair that bleeds in the shower.

She went to Arizona State University for a year and a half, before realizing she hated everything about it.

Another fun fact: Swazey has a pet snake.

She hopes to live in Seattle when she grows up and she wants to adopt a baby from Africa.

Swazey’s mother is a flight attendant so she can fly anywhere practically for free. She likes to brag about having been to Ireland, London, Paris, Rome, Venice, Vienna, Austria, Prague, Czech Republic, and Germany.

Last fun fact: Swazey is often told she resembles Julia Styles, a comment she detests.

Swazey is very involved in the speech and debate scene, having participated for two years in high school and coached for a year and a half in college. This is where she discovered the art of slam poetry.

She began writing and performing her own poems in competition, which is incidentally completely against the rules. But she only lives once.

Like Ashley Swazey and slam poetry? 

Support "Holy Spoken Word," Necessary Poetry's 1st Anthology:

A multimedia anthology, showcasing the amazing writing, artwork, and spoken-word performance of the Necessary Poetry collective, a group of poets from Sedona, Flagstaff and Prescott.

Click here to help support our efforts on Kickstarter. A donation of even $10 or $20 gets us closer to our goal of our first publication and establishment of a nonprofit spoken word collective open to all.

Friday, April 12, 2013

"you know, I'm leaving in the morning" by Verbal Kensington and a reply, "famous last words," by Christopher Fox Graham

This week, I took a poem by my good friend Verbal Kensington and wrote a reply. To add a little more fun, I also took her other poems and worked them in.

At this week's FlagSlam, she went seventh, I went eighth, so the audience got the poems right after another.

Verbal's poem is below. In my poem, the original or reworked lines from this poem are in orange, from other poems are in green. The red is from Derrick Brown, one of her favorite poets.

"you know, I'm leaving in the morning."

By Verbal Kensington

"you know, I'm leaving in the morning."

These words drop casually from his lips, unflinching, cascading down his flinted chin to fall at my feet and puddle there, between us. He holds his gaze, as if it could tractor-beam reel me in, but his game is too weak. this line wavers in the silent space between us, and I'm warpspeed shifting my trajectory, all power to starboard, gunning for the cause.

He has no escape plan, he's no criminal mastermind, just a two- penny panty raider, doesn't realize he's tripped the alarm, all that stumbling around in the dark.

So I lean in close, and say listen - Don't mistake my open door for an invitation - don't mistake my nice for naive, cuz I was born on a day, but it wasn't yesterday, and you don't know me. I collect jawdrops and eyepops til my pockets fucking jingle. Smiles cost nothing, so I hand them out freely - but don't forget they are made of teeth. These meateaters are just a tonguetip from savage and you are a sick wildebeast, trailing behind the herd. If you think you can keep up, baby, better pick up the pace.

Don't Look me in the face, and say that you're leaving in the morning - when what you mean to say is that you are a trip which will only come my way once, so I better hop on and ride while it lasts - which I can see won't be long. You fancy yourself a barrelling freight train and you've pegged me for a passenger, when I am a destination. I am not some spit-shined station corridor to be casually passed through, I'm a vast country awaiting exploration my landscape brilliant and beautiful. I'm obviously foreign to you, cuz you're not speaking my language. I'm a menu of good taste offering five-course delight, not some blue plate Saturday night. My ribcage sign flashes neon open, but don't confuse my kindness for a cornerstore - there's a winning lotto ticket ticking countdown behind the counter, but you'll find nothing quick or convenient - though I'm happy to make change.

I know the sign said shirts and shoes, but the best dates show up dressed in sparkling self-respect, and I am the longest day of summer, all lightning and June bugs, openmouth kissing the starshine into latenight conversations, and what you're telling me is, you don't have that kind of time.

Which is fine - but I am no napkin poem, or match book phone number, I will not be crumpled and lost to tomorrow's wash. But I'm sure this bar holds some pretty pink panty waste of a girl willing to jump smiling into your bed of bullshit, but I've always preferred sheets - even if they are only made of paper... and all I know about you is that you're leaving.in the morning, and I'm not the one-line happy ending to anyone's bedtime story.

"famous last words"

By Christopher Fox Graham

"They couldn't hit an elephant from this distance,"
Union General John Sedgwick said in 1864
seconds before a Confederate sniper
nailed him beneath his left eye

rarely, are last words so profound
or elegantly recorded

and he,
the man at the bar says his:
"you know, I'm leaving in the morning"

it drops from his lips
and I perk up
because we all take a passing glance at a car accident
but rarely do we get to see one happen
and this is her Mack Truck magnificence
about to meet him dressed up in a Bambi suit

I resist the urge to shout at him
"Muddy Waters said it better!"
but I'm not throwing him that life preserver
because this fool chose to jump overboard
and he's about to drown in the gene pool

he thinks himself a cat burglar raiding panties
with a pickup line American G.I.s turned into a cliché
decades before any of us were born
but really, he's the guy who'd sell weed
to a cop
in front of the police station
for the second time

Now she –
I saw her wanted poster hanging in the heart of every public building
with a reward so high
I found a Boba Fett mask and became a bounty hunter

but tonight,
I heard her long before I saw her
her pockets jingled from the jawdrops and eyepops
she collects from boys like me who smile instead of speak
because the right words only come
when we put them on paper
weeks after they're of any use

I will tell her this in person
weeks after it's of any use
Only my hindsight is 20/20.

She'll say honesty is the most amazing flavor she has ever tasted,
but it needs more salt
because she's never satiated
and I'm not sure if this is an explanation or an apology.

my grandmother warned me about girls like her
"Son, if you meet a girl with a cunning cat smile
and a slanted sideways glance,
who plays 10 chess games in every conversation -
don't try to get inside her head,
you'll just get your ass kicked by all the other ideas.
Do your best to win her
and if you're not the right man for her
become the man who is"

"your grandfather did the same"

Sometimes, we have to tear it all down
before we can build anew
I'll use the rain to wash my wounds
until I get this right

now she
is no napkin poem, nor match book phone number
she is a girl who wears Chuck Taylors like the punk rock badass she was born as
and merely had to grow into
a girl who hears the world clamoring, and just sings louder.
a girl equally parts skeptical and convinced, who watches cartoons on a projector,
whose love takes mouths hostage and makes people smile against their will
a girl so brilliant as a verbalistic ninja poet
that the lines of this poem
were all originally hers
I just scrambled egg them into a morning breakfast
served alongside bacon and coffee
that I hope to serve to her every morning until
there is no 'til
until I die
with the kind of joy in my heart my grandfather had
as he slipped away from grandma
knowing he had a winning lottery ticket every day

my grandmother warned me about girls like her
because she was one of them too

If I have to
I'd bring a suitcase full of unmarked kisses and meet her under the bridge at midnight
she'll be wearing the blue dress made from the skies of longest day of summer
pinned to her shoulders by June bugs

between openmouth kisses I'll tell her
"if I was on a freight train barreling past you
I would derail it and spend the rest of my days exploring your countryside
until I am buried beneath it"

then apologize
because the metaphor made more sense in my head before I said it

I know some days she feels like she's reached the age of unraveling –
when it all comes apart at the dreams
I feel that way too
but lovers stich up each other with the ignorance still woven into their threads
and I have plenty to spare

if I ever say
"you know, I'm leaving in the morning"
it'll only be followed with
"but I'll be back in the afternoon,
working enough to buy a new bed
because the smoldering ruins of the old one
just holds both last night's ashes
and this morning's kindling
the sheets will be made of paper
on which we can write another night's poem
because this one won't be the last"

between the lines,
we can outline our silhouettes against the backdrop of a blank page,
and let our history be the judge


Like slam poetry? 

Support "Holy Spoken Word," Necessary Poetry's 1st Anthology:

A multimedia anthology, showcasing the amazing writing, artwork, and spoken-word performance of the Necessary Poetry collective, a group of poets from Sedona, Flagstaff and Prescott.

Click here to help support our efforts on Kickstarter. A donation of even $10 or $20 gets us closer to our goal of our first publication and establishment of a nonprofit spoken word collective open to all.

Necessary Poetry Project poets feature at the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, April 13

Necessary Poetry Project poets feature at the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, April 13

Sedona’s Studio Live hosts a poetry slam Saturday, April 13, starting at 7:30 p.m. hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham.


All poets are welcome to compete for the $75 grand prize and $25 second-place prize. The prize is funded in part by a donation from Verde Valley poetry supporter Jeanne Freeland.

The slam is the sixth of the 2012-13 season, which will culminate in selection of Sedona’s second National Poetry Slam Team, the foursome and alternate who will represent the city at the National Poetry Slam in Boston and Cambridge, Mass., in August.
Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive.
The local poets will share the stage with 300 of the top poets in the United States, Canada and Europe, pouring out their words in a weeklong explosion of expression. Sedona sent its five-poet first team to the 2012 National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C.
For the Sedona Poetry Slam, slammers will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted.

The poets will be judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam. 

To compete in the slam, poets need at least three original poems, each three minutes long or shorter. No props, costumes or musical accompaniment are permitted. All types of poetry are welcome.

The slam will be hosted by Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on six FlagSlam National Poetry Slams in 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2012.
Contact Graham at foxthepoet@yahoo.com to sign up to slam.

What is Necessary Poetry?
 
The April 13 poetry slam will feature many of the 15 poets involved in the Necessary Poetry project, a collective of 15 of the best performance poets in Northern Arizona. Necessary Poetry is currently raising money to publish its first anthology of poetry, which will include a printed book and an online version complete with high-quality video, audio versions of poetry put to music and visual arts by some of Northern Arizona best contemporary artists to enhance the poetry.

The Necessary Poetry collective will use its funds to host workshops for students, youth and seniors around Northern Arizona. For more information on the project and goals, visit Necessary Poetry, Necessary Publishing or the group's "Holy Spoken Word - Necessary Poetry's 1st Anthology" project on Kickstarter.


What is Poetry Slam?


Founded in Chicago in 1984, 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.

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.


2013 Sedona National Poetry Slam Team


Competing poets earn points with each Sedona Poetry Slam performance between September and May. Every poet earns 1 point for performing or hosting. First place earns 3 additional points, second place earns 2 and third place earns 1.


Based on points, the top 12 poets in May are eligible to compete for the four slots on the Sedona Poetry Slam Team, which will represent the community and Studio Live at the 2013 National Poetry Slam in Boston. Poets can compete for multiple teams during a season and still be eligible to compete in the Sedona team.



Support Arizona poets during National Poetry Month: "Open Letter to the Dissidents of My Generation"



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 a spot on Sedona’s National slam team.

Valence has lived in Arizona for eight years, 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 turn off their smartphones.

In the future, Valence has plans for touring, albums, books, and a new style of performance art that combines spoken word with live video and music. At only twenty-two years of age, his creative development has only begun.

At only 21 years of age, his creative development has only begun.

Like Valence and slam poetry? 

Support "Holy Spoken Word," Necessary Poetry's 1st Anthology:

A multimedia anthology, showcasing the amazing writing, artwork, and spoken-word performance of the Necessary Poetry collective, a group of poets from Sedona, Flagstaff and Prescott.

Click here to help support our efforts on Kickstarter. A donation of even $10 or $20 gets us closer to our goal of our first publication and establishment of a nonprofit spoken word collective open to all.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

What does Necessary Poetry want to do?


Help support us on Kickstarter. Donate to help us publish Holy Spoken Word - Necessary Poetry's 1st Anthology: A multimedia anthology, showcasing the amazing writing, artwork, and spoken-word performance of the Necessary Poetry collective.

Click here to help support our efforts on Kickstarter. A donation of even $10 or $20 would do wonders to get us to our goal.

 The poets are some of the best in Northern Arizona:

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Visit Kickstarter and support "Holy Spoken Word" - Necessary Poetry's 1st Anthology

"Holy Spoken Word" is Necessary Poetry's 1st Anthology:

A multimedia anthology, showcasing the amazing writing, artwork, and spoken-word performance of the Necessary Poetry collective, a group of poets from Sedona, Flagstaff and Prescott.

Click here to help support our efforts on Kickstarter. A donation of even $10 or $20 would do wonders to get us to our goal.

Necessary Poetry is the collaborative effort of over 15 Arizona slam poets.

Sparked by a common love for written and spoken word, and a collective desire to inspire and motivate positive creative expression, we've joined together to publish a multi-media anthology of our best individual and cooperative creations - Holy Spoken Word. We are a passionate band of dedicated volunteers, and this stunning collection of words, artwork, and recorded performances is sure to seduce minds and ignite hearts everywhere.
BUT, POETRY IS BORING. Not this poetry! This poetry is raw. This poetry is relentless. This poetry captures smiles - it takes mouths hostage.

The poets are some of the best in Northern Arizona:


FAQ


  • Words are our religion... so in a way, yes. But in the way you probably meant it - um, no.
    The poetry submitted to Necessary Poetry may have religious themes or imagery from various traditions, but the project as a whole is secular and nonreligious. While some of the poets themselves may be religious or spiritual, others are secular, agnostic and atheist. The title "Holy Spoken Word" stems from the poets' belief that if anything is "holy," then surely it must be poetry and its power to connect peoples across time, languages, cultures, religious and spiritual or nonspiritual traditions.
  • Because everything is poetry. The way the rain falls, the way the light bounces off a glass, the way you cried hard when your first love dumped you because your freckles freaked him or her out... Inspiration can be found anywhere, and we're passionate about presenting ours in a way which connects us all on a human level. 
  • Hell, no!  Necessary Poetry's contributors have all agreed that any monies received from the sale of this anthology will be used to fund a series of workshops on writing and expression, and to support the efforts of aspiring poets and spoken word performers in our community.
    The hardworking poets hope to use those resources to fund workshops and efforts to bring poetry to a wider audience and encourage those who want to want to speak to find the poet and Holy Spoken Word within themselves, whatever that may be.

    Click here to help support our efforts on Kickstarter.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Meet Necessary Poetry: A Multimedia Arts Collective in Flagstaff, Sedona and Northern Arizona


Necessary Poetry is a collaborative effort. Our mission is to inspire creative expression - we do this by encouraging the poetry in ourselves, each other, and anyone interested in connecting to the written and spoken word.

We believe everyone has a message or story to share with the world - and that it's all poetry. We root for the underdog. We're here to promote and support the work of authors, poets, and spoken-word artists of all ages and walks of life, whose words might not otherwise see the light of day.

We believe that poetry is necessary. We believe our words have weight. We're here to share our work with others, and to inspire and empower others to do the same.

Interested in learning more? Visit us here.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

"The Names of Trees," by Christopher Fox Graham, music by Robert Gonzales


Music by Robert Gonzales, recorded 12-31-2012 in Flagstaff, Arizona

The Names of Trees

By Christopher Fox Graham
before we named the trees
we feared the dark
ran from the shadows
monsters stalked us
in daytime’s tall grasses
and nighttime’s nightmares

we feared fire most of all
it ate the unnamed trees alive
its breath choked the beasts we hunted
we could not hold it
and could not fight it
just fear it

but one of us
The First of us
saw an infant spark
and treated it like a child
she learned to wield it
our first tool
brought it into the caves
and taught us not to fear
but use it
to chase away the monsters

fire is always the same
because a flame is never the same
from moment to moment
by always changing
the flame never changes

with fire
we learned to control the shadows
we danced them onto cave walls
where we trapped the monsters in ocher and ash

we used the fire to keep the beasts away in the night
to cook the bounty gathered from the earth
and roast our meat from the day’s hunt

and with bellies full
in the glow of the fire
we learned language
around campfires
as our elders told stories
of their young days long passed
they told us the names of trees:
oak
ash
banyan
pine
bodhi
fir
palm
cedar
sugi
cypress
they spoke of the strong mothers who raised them
the great hunts of their brave fathers
how they leaned ways to teach us these things

they told us
of ancestors who had long since turned to bones
and were now dust
who had sprinkled themselves across the heavens
to watch over us
always
glowing in the dark
like flames in the night

when the fire in their own hearts
began to flicker
they asked us to built fires to mourn their death
help ascend their bodies
so they could watch over us from new stars
alongside their ancestors

around the fire
we learned to structure nouns and verbs
into rhythm and beat
rhyme and stanza
turning the articulation of breath
the staccato of consonants
the tone and pitch of air in living lungs
into the art of poetry
stories we could pass from generation to generation
long after the first lungs to hold them
were silent beneath the dirt
we still tell some of those stories
passing along the poetry
of heroes
who are no longer bones
no longer dust
but vapor in the wind

around the fire
we passed on what we had learned
to the children who would mourn us
consider these frail lifeless bones still sacred
because they once held them
in their infancy

long after our bones turned to dust
and the dust turned to vapor
and the vapor exhaled by something new
they would remember … us
in the stories around the fire

a ribbon of flesh and fire
tied us to the infant spark
that The First one of us
held without fear

fire is always the same
because a flame is never the same
from moment to moment
by always changing
the flame never changes

it is consumption and combustion
a moment of reaction
between earth and air
the tangible and ethereal
in a spark of life
never the same from one second the next

nothing is eternal but change
so our civilizations learn to adapt
like tongues of flame
growing together or apart
rising and falling
expanding and shrinking
dancing in a campfire

we sometimes forget that lesson
so our empires defy it
our monuments stand against it
our great cities are abandoned
for new homes
Sumeria
is now just artifacts
Assyria
has become Scrabble word
31 dynasties ruled Egypt,
each falling to the next
the dream of Rome
became a dream again
the sun never set on the British Empire
until the day it did
and young America too
will grow old into history books
but the fire will still be the same
because a flame is never the same
from moment to moment

even now
in the glow of digital screens
behind the wheel of combustion engines
or miles above the earth
in steel aircraft
or space stations
we are still mesmerized by the flame
we gather around fireplaces on holidays
remembering the ancient reasons for things
we light wax candles for dead loved ones
hoping whispered words
might rise to their ears in the heavens
where they watch us
alongside ancestors

we find ourselves
still captivated by campfires
staring into them
unable to look away sometimes
while we tell stories
just like we used to
when home
wasn’t made from stone and brick
or animal skins from last year’s hunt
but the warmest cave
on our nomadic trek
following the herds
teaching our children
the names of trees

some day
when we no longer fear the dark
a descendant of the flame that first warmed us
as we lay dreaming of stars
will help send a few of us
beyond the reach of Earth
never again to see this home
more will follow
using flickers of fire
to pass the boundaries
break the laws of gravity
that we will refuse to obey any longer
and sail across the night
unafraid of the monsters we left behind
trapped on cave walls beneath ocher and ash
they will make their homes
on marbles of every color
swirling in the dusty arms of space
and in the wildernesses of new worlds
they will name new trees
tell stories around campfires of ancestors
strong mothers
brave fathers

fire is always the same
because a flame is never the same
from moment to moment
by always changing
the flame never changes

some day
when “human”
means something else entirely
and whomever we become
sails on the winds of supernovas
finds no fear exploring black holes
the last place darkness can hide from us

they may communicate the poetry quasars and quarks
with the same beauty as verbs and nouns
but still stare at the surface of suns
and without explanation why
know the fire burning before them
is still wonderful to witness
because in the glimmer of a memory
dancing with the arithmetic of orbiting atoms
and the geometry of galaxies
they can feel something deep in their bones
tying them like a ribbon of flesh and flame across time
to a tiny world
whose name they have forgotten
or can no longer pronounce
and remember
somehow,
ancestors who wielded an infant spark
to no longer fear monsters or the dark
but listen around the first campfire
to poetry
and stories
and the names of trees

Monday, December 31, 2012

My Biggest Events of 2012

The year 2012 was busy, with both highs and lows. These are neither the best nor worst the biggest events of my year:

Confirming ballistics from double murder outside Sedona

The morning of Friday, Jan. 6, James Johnson, 63, from Jaffrey, N.H., and Carol Raynsford, 63, from Nelson, N.H., were found shot to death in an idling late-model red Subaru wagon around 11:30 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 6, at an overlook between Sedona and Cottonwood. There hasn't been a murder inside Sedona city limits since 2003.

Photo by ABC15 News
On Sunday, Jan. 8, a shootout in Anthem resulted in the death of Maricopa County Sheriff's Office deputy William Coleman, a 20-year veteran of MCSO and father of two.

The suspect, Drew Ryan Maras, 30, fired 29 rounds at police, two of which killed Coleman. Deputies fired 41 rounds, killing Maras.

The weapons that killed Jaffrey, Raynsford and Coleman were all .223-caliber rounds.

We, at the Sedona Red Rock News, were trying to get confirmation of a ballistics match between the two shootings, but the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office couldn't confirm it.

A tragedy, like this, means something different to a journalist. While we feel compassion for the victims of violent crimes or bank frauds and assaults and identify as fellow humans to those in feature stories or obituaries, reporting the news is our job. Reporting this story, and doing it before anyone else in the Verde Valley means I was doing my job for my community.We went to press suggesting there might be a relation, but 15 minutes to deadline on Tuesday, Jan. 10, I happened across a Twitter post from a New Jersey news site confirming the connection. My editor was out of the office, so the onus fell on me. I shouted "stop the presses!" had my photojournalist Tom Hood checking my email every 20 seconds while I called MCSO over and over until I got verbal confirmation and Hood got a press release from MCSO verifying the ballistics. I rewrote the lead with just a minute to spare and sent the plate the press, effectively breaking the story locally connecting the two shootings.

There is still no motive in the two deaths near Sedona.




May photo shoot

In May, following a Sedona Poetry Slam, a got a group of my best poets to stay overnight.

Photo by Tara Graeber
Josh Wiss, Spencer Troth, me, Brian Walker, Azami, Nodalone, Valence and
Lauren Hanss, left to right, helped encapsulate Arizona's Wild West and sci-fi
motifs.
The next morning, we went out to Fay Canyon and shot a series of photos blending Firefly imagery with the Old West, with images shot by Tara Graeber.

Hikers to the site came across a dozen armed poets and artists adjacent to the trailhead. Seeing there reaction to poets like Josh Wiss with three pistols and Valence wearing heterochromic sunglasses, my trenchcoat and a wielding a rusty shotgun must have been terrifying, then hilarious.

Of course, readers of my blog have seen the results of these pics as they are my favorites.



Publishing my first bound book, "The Opposite of Camouflage"

In late May, I started working on my first bound book of poetry, publishing it through Lulu.com, a print on demand service.

I hadn't printed a new book of my poems since 2006 and I've become a much better poet since then. It has 16 poems in a 52-page bound book, available for $9.99.

Poems included:
  • Welcome to the Church of the Word
  • Manifesto of an Addict
  • We Call Him Papa
  • Spinal Language
  • Ragnarok
  • The Peach
  • Breakfast Cereal
  • In the Corners of This Room
  • Three Minutes for Dylan
  • Do You Have a Baseball Bat?
  • My Hands are in the Mail
  • The Devil’s Gardens
  • Revolution 2.0
  • Staring at the Milky Way with One Eye Closed
  • Dear Pluto
  • They Held Hands
Special thanks to Big Pappa E for suggesting the title.




Winning the FlagSlam Grand Slam in May

Photo by Tara Graeber
The FlagSlam Grand Poetry Slam competitors: Tara Pollock, Ryan Brown,
Spencer Troth, me, Valence, Dan Rivera, Evan Dissinger, Josh Wiss, Nancy,
Nodalone, Vincent Vega and Jackson Morris. Pollock, Brown, I, Nodalone and
Morris made the team.

The last time I was legitimately on a team was 2006.

In 2010, I was added to my fifth Flagstaff team because I had competed and happened to be going to Nationals as a volunteer and the team's fourth poet bailed.

But in 2012, after a year of competing every week, despite living 40 minutes away in Sedona, I won the FlagSlam Grand Slam, making the team with Ryan Brown, Tara Pollock and Nodalone, and our alternate Jackson Morris, who we almost immediately made a fifth member of the team, as permitted by Poetry Slam Inc. rules.

The team was super supportive and incredibly talented, probably the strongest team of poets since the inaugural team in 2001.




First Sedona Grand Slam in June; performing with Azami

In 2011, The Klute suggested I send a team from Sedona to the National Poetry Slam.
I scrambled in to get in six poetry slams between December and May, meeting the threshold to qualify for inclusion in the National Poetry Slam, paid venue registration and certification for Studio Live and set up a point system to encourage poets to participate. 

Members of the Sedona Poetry Slam Team, left to right, Frank O'Brien, Spencer
Troth, Evan Dissinger, Tyler “Valence” Sirvinskas and Josh Wiss stand on stage
after their first National Poetry Slam bout at the McGlohon Theatre in Charlotte,
N.C. The team came in third, losing to Portland, Ore., and Oklahoma City, but
defeating Springfield, Mo.
In June, I hosted the first ever Sedona Poetry Grand Slam, featuring in alphabetical order:
  • Evan Dissinger is one of the preeminent voices in the Flagstaff poetry scene. A skateboard rat in Flagstaff, Dissinger is one of the most sincere poets in Arizona with a knack for making conventional experiences sublime.
  • Lauren Hanss is one of the strong female voices in Flagstaff. An early education and creative writing student at NAU, Hanss is respected for her honest, confessional poetry.
  • Known for his political savvy and humorous poetry, The Klute performs all over the United States and Canada and featured at the Poetry Slam and the Sedona Public Library. A seasoned veteran, The Klute has been to the National Poetry Slam seven times, for the Mesa Slam Team in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006, and the Phoenix Slam Team in 2008, 2009 and 2010. He also won the grand slams in 2005 and 2010.
  • A poet’s poet, Frank O’Brien writes with a profound simplicity. O’Brien won the 2008 and 2009 Flagstaff Grand Slams, and competed at three national poetry slams from 2008 to 2010.
  • A veteran national competitor, Lauren Perry competed at the National Poetry Slam with the Mesa Poetry Slam Team in 2006, 2009 and 2010. She also proudly represented Sedona at the 2012 Women of the World Poetry Slam in Denver.
  • Austin Reeves is an up-and-coming voice in both Sedona and Flagstaff. A coffee-loving creative writing student at NAU, Reeves has already made an impact, taking second at the last Sedona Poetry Slam in May.
  • Beginning in Flagstaff in 2005, Rowie Shebala has slammed all over Arizona. After graduating from NAU with a Bachelors of Science in Theater and a minor in English, she hosted the poetry slam in Gallup, N.M. On the national level, she competed at the 2009 Women of the World Poetry Slam in Detroit and as a member of the Mesa Slam Team in 2011.
  • Tyler Sirvinskas aka Valence, was a member of the 2011 Flagstaff National Poetry Slam team. He is the top-ranked poet competing in the Sedona grand slam.
  • A political science student at NAU, Spencer Troth’s introspective work brings compassion to his views of current events, such as a poem touching on the double murder outside Sedona in January. Troth will be taking his poetic voice overseas as a political science student in France next year.
  • Mikel Weisser is a school teacher from Kingman, an Occupy activist and a 2012 candidate for Arizona’s Congressional District 4. In conjunction with his congressional campaign and activist activities, Weisser schedules poetry performances all over the state.
  • Part of the performance included a duo poem featuring me
    performing "[The Dust] In the Corners of this Room" with my
    then-girlfriend Azami dancing to the piece.
  • Joshua Wiss’ infectious enthusiasm for life is evident in his energetic performances. A recent graduate of NAU with a degree in creative writing, Wiss performed at every Sedona Poetry Slam this season and is currently ranked No. 2.
Part of the performance included a duo poem featuring me performing "[The Dust] In the Corners of this Room" with my then-girlfriend Azami dancing to the piece.

That was awesome.


The 2012 Sedona National Poetry Slam Team members were chosen: Valence, Evan Dissinger, Josh Wiss, Frank O'Brien and Spenser Troth




Desert Rocks Music Festival

The Apocalypse Slam, The Dust and Whiskey Slam,The Hunger Slam, whatever the 12 poets who participated wanted to call it, it was a struggle but awesome when all was said and done.

Notice the lack of green on the underlying map. The festival was dust, just
dust.
The slam itself was great, the camaraderie between those of us who went will last for years, because performing slam poems in the face of 50-mile-an-hour dusty gusts will make you tight with each other. Misery loves company.

Hanging out with Seth Walker, Solomon Schneider and some of the best slam poets in the country was worth all the heartache of going and competing:
  • Karen Neverland was a member of the Salt City Slam Team in 2010 and has featured at many venues around the Salt Lake area with her poetry and motivational speaking. She has been featured on KRCL’s RadioActive and City Weekly’s Zionized and has recently completed a full-length philosophy book (unpublished). Karen has also self-published three chapbooks of poetry and often performs under the nickname “Karo”. In her free time she runs Salt Lake City’s most successful open microphone at Greenhouse Effect and enjoys creating music. 
  • Amy Everhart has been called one of "America's most refreshing Poetic Voices", a whirling-dervish of a performer whose voice sucker punched itself into the National Consciousness when she made history in Berkley California on October 10th, 2009 by being the first Woman to ever win the Individual World Poetry Slam, the most highly coveted title in United States performance poetry.
  •  Will Stanford is co-founder of Sparrow Ghost Publishing and Collective, a hair-stylist in training, hst of Portland Poetry Slam, Word-Out and Broetry. I write poems and do hoodrat stuff with my friends. Also, he performed a poem naked.
  • Slam scores posted during the Desert Rock Music Festival.
  • Jackhammer Serenade is composed of Dre Johnson and Patrick Ohslund and was born of fire and incalculable odds as these two poets converged from vastly different backgrounds on the 2009 poetry team Life Sentence. Since then they have given themselves entirely to multi voice work in order to further the human experiment of melding consciousness.
    Their work is at once tongue and cheek combined with a biting no-nonsense social commentary on the unseen suffering going on in the urban world.
  • Jesse Parent is a poet, an improviser, a former mixed martial arts fighter, a computer nerd, a husband, a father, and, above all, a human being. According to the results of the 2010 and 2011 Individual World Poetry Slams, he is also the 2nd ranked slam poet in the world.
  • Jordan Ranft loves poetry. He loves writing it, and he loves performing it. In the few years he has been practicing his craft he has taken the scene by storm. First starting performance career out in Colorado Jordan placed several times at the Mercury Cafe Slam in Denver. Now residing in northern California he has performed all over the bay area, won multiple slams, and has featured at several big name events including the Northbay Poetry Slam and the San Francisco How Weird Street Fair.
  • Lauren Zuniga is a nationally touring poet, teaching artist and activist. She is one of the top 5 ranked female poets in the world, the 2012 Activist-in-Residence at the OU Center for Social Justice and the founder of Oklahoma Young Writers. MoveOn.org, called her poem "The most riveting message on the war on women in under three minutes." Her work has also featured in On the Issues Magazine, Daily Kos, Crooks and Liars, Being Liberal, RH Reality Check, Muzzle Magazine, The Good Things About America and The Gayly.
  • Gray Brian Thomas is a performance poet born and raised in Salt Lake City Utah. Graduating cum laude with a B.A. in English in 2012 from the University of Utah where he was editor of enormous rooms, the undergraduate literary journal, Gray has been writing and performing poetry for several years. He was a member of the 2007, and 2011 Salt City Slam teams, and is a current member of the 2012 Salt City Slam team. He helped found the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational team for the University of Utah, which sent it's first ever representatives to the 2012 CUPSI tournament. Gray is also the 2012 Individual World Poetry Slam representative for Salt Lake City, which will take place later this year in Fayettville, Ark.
  • Lacey Roop is a nationally recognized and touring poet placing 6th in the 2011 Women of the World Poetry Slam (WOWPS), was the Austin, TX Individual World Poetry Slam (IWPS) representative, and has been a two-time member of the renowned Austin Poetry Slam.
    What is far more interesting about Lacey, however, is that she has an uncanny ability to get hit by cars while biking, finds the fact that we are all made of stars both fascinating and comforting, and wears a key around her neck that unlocks the bottom of the ocean. Really, it does.
  • The rapper Progress.
  • Lilly Fangz
  • Me 
And we got to see Beats Antique, Brother Ali, and the winners, Jackhammer Serenade, opened for the Wailers.




    Copperstate Poetry Slam

    Valence, Josh Wiss, Evan Dissinger, and
    Frank O'Brien show off the 2012 Copperstate
    Poetry Slam trophy they won as the Sedona
    National Poetry Slam Team.
    The Copperstate Poetry Slam brought together poetry slam teams from all over Arizona. Flagstaff was rocking it, but Nodalone and I dropped our duo "Babies" and effectively threw the slam.

    My Sedona boys, however, rocked it and took home the trophy.

    Spenser Troth was in Los Angeles getting visa from the French consulate for a future study abroad course and coun't attend. The rest of the 2012 Sedona National Poetry Slam Team Valence, Evan Dissinger, Josh Wiss, Frank O'Brien

    After Nationals, the team chose to give me the trophy as the Sedona SlamMaster, which now sits on my entertainment unit, proudly overlooking all the slams of the 2012-2013 slam poetry season.

    Whatever team I'm on in 2013 will be gunning for the next trophy.




    The FlagSlam Team at Nationals in August and peforming nothing but duo poems.

    I have always loved Ryan Brown's poetry.

    Being able to perform a duo poem with him at the National Poetry Slam was awesome. We had performed my poem "Dear Pluto" flawlessly at the Copperstate Poetry Slam and I was looking forward to slamming it at Nationals.

    FlagSlam 2012: nodalone, Ryan Brown, Jackson Morris, myself and Tara
    Pollock outside our venue at the National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C.
    I wrote the poem and Ryan did the edits to transform it into a duo.

    We killed it in the first and second rounds of the National Poetry Slam and gave the powerhouse Nuyorican Poets' Cafe a run for its money, leading them for two rounds before they and Hawaii slam pushed out some great poems and pushed us to third place.

    Slamming with such a talented team was a great experience.

    Having been to nationals as a solo performer so many times, I looked forward to an odd anomaly this year; I perform on the nationals stage three times, none of which were solo. My first poem was with Ryan, my second was "Babies" with nodalone, and my third was a duo poem with Tara Pollock dancing.

    I also got trashed at nationals, no surprise there, and handed out nearly every copy of


    My newest poetry book "The Opposite of Camouflage"

    GumptionFest VII

    Yep, seven years of providing free art for the community.

    This was the first year without our founders Dylan Jung and Danielle Gervasio. There was some complaints about shifting the location of the venue from Coffee Pot Drive to the Old Marketplace and a lot of headaches between organizers who had some difficulty getting along. There were also complaints about so many out of town acts and so few locals on the stages. But the economy has been weak, and there are fewer full-tme and amateur performers in Sedona,

    Splitting sites was admittedly troublesome as a lot of people didn't realize the festival was as large as it was. The stage at Sun Signs suffered the most, which is real shame because Mark Jacobson has been one of biggest, longest supporters.

    GumptionFest is always an experiement and we learned from this one. As we say every GumptionFest, next year will be better.

    On the plus side, I fought for my poets to be treated as equals on the programs, website and promotional materials. Poets The Klute, Tara Pollock, Evan Dissinger, Josh Wiss, Taylor Hayes, John Q, Batman (Biance Luedecker) and Geoff Jackson all had a turn on the microphone with The Klute winning the annual GumptionFest Haiku Death Match, reclaiming the title from his 2010 victory.

    Get ready for GumptionFest VIII in September.




    Death of Chris Lane in August

    Ever since Christopher Lane's death, people have asked me my reaction, or been afraid to. This is as near as I get to an official statement.

    The reason I moved to Sedona in March 2004 was to help Chris Lane run NORAZ Poets.

    Despite being friends from the 2001 Flagstaff National Poetry Slam Team through our years living together as slam poets in Sedona, he kicked me off the 2006 NORAZ Poets Slam Team after Meghan Jones had a temper tantrum over some angry emails and quit in a tizzy about two weeks before the National Poetry Slam.

    The fact Lane created a previously nonexistent "ethics of email correspondence" rule and tried to send me a certified letter telling me I was off the rather then call me or stop by -- we lived in the same small town after all -- was a bullshit move on his part I felt and I never forgave him for the coldness with which he behaved toward his friendly rival and one of his oldest in Northern Arizona.

    This staged photo of Chris Lane in Jerome in 2004 and me would later prove
    to be our de facto relationship from 2006 until his death in Aug. 2012.
    Thus began the Sedona Poetry Civil War, as one of our mutual friends called it in 2010. For the first year, I was "banned" from competing in NORAZ slams, but still went to a few in Flagstaff while avoiding those in my own town. I still co-ran a relatively popular open mic with Greg Nix at the Szechuan Martini Bar.

    In February 2007, Sedona Monthly ran an article of Lane's franchise of the Alzheimer's Poetry Project and accidently ran my name in the story and photo captions, to which I took great delight. The reporter had never met me.

    On March 12, 2007, he called for a truce and we met in a neutral location at a restaurant to discuss the terms. We negotiated a code of conduct for NORAZ, the terms of which he changed when he sent a final draft on March 27, 2007, adding in a whole series of rules about drug and alcohol use, which in a poetry scene or any civil setting were superfluous and unnecessary for a simple nonprofit. After all, I held a poetry open mic at a Sedona bar and banning minors from entering was the job of the bar and the bouncers, not Nix and myself.

    At the same time, Nix and I were hosting the Sedona Poetry Open Mic, an event which Lane wanted to put the NORAZ Poets logo, but which Nix and I declined as long as the alcohol portion of the code of conduct was still in question. In any case the dialogue fell apart by mid-April.

    In 2007-2008, Aaron Johnson stepped down as FlagSlam Slam Master. NORAZ. The new FlagSlam had little to do with NORAZ afterward, and in late 2008, the FlagSlam poets asked me to feature. That marked the end of Lane's involvement with the adult slam as he turned to Brave New Voices, the youth slam teams, and one for which there was more grant money to be had to run the nonprofit. I made a point to fill the void for all ages slams in the Verde Valley, first hosting a team slam at the Old Town Center for the Arts in Cottonwood, then later starting the Sedona Poetry Slam in 2009.

    By 2009, the civil war had become a cold one; he didn't attend or support any of my events and I didn't attend or support any of his; the exception being one Sedona Poetry Slam featuring a former 2001 teammate, Josh Fleming, which he attended but did not speak to me.

    I stylized the Sedona Poetry Slam to be what NORAZ Poets had began as, and opposite of what it evolved into. I wanted Sedona Poetry Slam to be open to all without regard to poets' personal lives, democratic, supportive both artistically and financially, and I set the ground rule that under no circumstances would I make any profit from poetry slams. All money from the slam returns to the poets via prize money, feature poets' pay, or team registration. In the intervening years, I heard stories from other poets and arts organizers about questionable financial and personal behavior; money or support for programs promised, then retracted, then promised again, then retracted or renegotiated, and various poets in Northern Arizona had falling outs over projects he supported then backed off from.

    Lane also began to refer to himself as Ya'ir, a Hebrew word meaning "he who enlightens," and putting "Christopher" into quotes. Lane was raised Catholic, but had become a Buddhist by the time I met him in Sedona. He converted to Judiasm before marrying his wife, but the name change was a bit much. I mean, we used to make fun of poets with stage names, going so far as suggesting he starting slamming under the stage name "Moniker" and I start slamming as "Pre-10-Shus" (pretentious). Toward the end, I suppose someone in the scene should have seen the decline, but his charisma just made him seem like he was getting more and more eccentric.

    On Aug. 19, 2012, at 7:05 a.m., Lane was pronounced dead at his home from benzodiazepine and narcotic intoxication, according to the Coconino County Medical Examiner's Office. I received word from a mutual friend later that morning and got a copy of the autopsy in September. Reading an autopsy is a odd experience -- an antiseptic description of a person's body you once used to share conversation and meals.

    I always expected that at some point, Lane would have apologized and our years of enmity would have come to an abrupt end. I'm not vindictive without cause and I'm quick to forgive when I believe in the sincerity of an apology. With his accidental overdose, we never had the luxury of repairing our friendship, but deep down I always thought it was inevitable.

    The civil war -- a melodramatic title but one I like, being a poet -- did make me into a better organizer and public figure simply because I tried to be his opposite. In the end, knowing him longer than nearly anyone outside of his family, and seeing both his light side and dark side, I feel like I knew him better than most and I hope in the end, he respected me as only a rival could. Coming to terms with his death was difficult because few people understood what having a sincere arch-rival or arch-nemesis is like. One mutual friend asked if I felt like Superman, Batman, or Obi-wan Kenobi hearing Lex Luthor, the Joker or Anakin Skywalker had died, but another said it was more like Iron Man and Captain America: we were rivals and didn't get along, but in the end, we were on the same side, promoting poetry and inspiring other poets to take the stage.

    That poem will one day be written.




    Saul Williams on November

    There are a few Greats in poetry slam every slammer should see in the flesh at least once. Marc Smith. Mike McGee. Derrick Brown. Shane Koyczan. Patricia Smith. Marty McConnell. Rachel McKibbons. Beau Sia. Taylor Mali. and Saul Williams.

    Considering Saul Williams lives in Paris now, I figured the nearest I would ever get would be some book tour in the late 2030s when I could afford the airfare and time off to hop a suborbital shuttle and catch him at some little theater in the Sorbonne.

    Instead, he came to Phoenix and performed a feature at Lawn Gnome, the bookstore performance space owned by my old friend and FlagSlam teammate Aaron Johnson.

    He performed new poems as well as his signature poems, ", said the Shotgun to the Head," "Sha-Clack-Clack," "Black Stacey" "S/he" and a big portion of "The Dead Emcee Scrolls."

    I got all my books signed, too.




    November Election

    As a news junkie, I was obsessed with the 2012 elections, both on the state and national levels. I interviewed Congressional District 1 Democratic primary candidate Wenona Benally Baldenegro, Republican primary candidate Doug Wade and the eventual winner, Ann Kirkpatrick.

    I installed Nate Silver's 535 app so I could watch the daily poll changes as they came across every morning.

    The reelection of Barack Obama seemed more or less inevitable as the opposition put forth only mediocre candidates unloved by the party running on an anti-Obama campaign rather than putting forth a real plan for any worthwhile changes.

    Gay marriage was approved in four states and recreational marijuana use was approved in two states, and while I have no vested personal interest in either, I am happy to see American move to sanity on progressive social issues.

    The repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell means we're moving toward an America where I can one day go to a gay friend's wedding which will have the same legal standing a straight one. “The arc of the moral universe Is long, but it bends toward justice,” minister Theodore Parker said in an 1853 sermon. One day I will, with great difficulty, attempt to explain to my children how their country could think one group of people could be denied their civil rights based on whom they love.

    I expect puzzled looks at the absurdity during that conversation.




    Winning the Dylan Thomas Award in December


    Mary Heyborne won the Christopher Lane Memorial Award. I won the Dylan
    Thomas Award for Excellence in the Written and Spoken Word, Eric Haury
    and Barbara tied for third and Josh Wiss won second place.
    On Dec. 14, Pumphouse Poets and Prose in Ken's Creekside Plaza and Cocopah Bead Shop North, awarded me the Dylan Thomas for Excellence in the Written and Spoken Word. Poet Joshua Wiss won the second place Dylan Thomas award and debuted his first book of poetry "Wonder: Full Bloom." Author and poet Barbara Mayer and author Eric Haury tied for third.

    Poet and playwright Mary Heyborne won the Christopher Lane Memorial Award.

    The Pumphouse Prose and Poetry Project is sponsored by Gary Every, author of 11 books who acted as presenter at the readings, Dr. Elizabeth Oakes, award winning poet and former Shakespeare professor, Cynthia Tuck, owner of Ageless Pages Bookstore and Ann Fabricant, owner of Cocopah North. The project will resume reading in the spring.





    Necessary Publishing

    The last two days of the year, I spent in Flagstaff with Ryan Brown, Robert Gonzales, Verbal Kensington, Josh Wiss and his girlfriend Katie, Maya Hall, Evan Dissinger, working on our newest project, NecessaryPublishing, from which plan to have a 100+ page book by early-2013.

    It's the culmination of all the art we're created over the last few months coming to life thanks to Verbal Kensington's motivation and organization.

    That's my focus for 2013.