The Stealing Home Tour features Benjamin Theolonius "IQ" Sanders and Nick Fox.

Alright... so these guys come bustin' into our little burg and think they can just walk in and start giving a workshop on "performance"...! AND THEN (as if the previous wasn't enough) they think they can put on a show the very next night !!?? Who in the hell are these guys and whose "home" do they think they're stealing... anyway!

They want to know where the best place is to get food, they want to be courteous guests in our house, they want to get to know the people in our town, they want to read poems that give a glimpse into those parts of who they are, they want to say, "Hey! We're on a national poetry tour... one that comes around only one time in life and we want to have a blast doing it, and we want everyone to have a blast WHILE we are doing it, and DAMN...this is fun!", they want to sell their poetry books, they want to talk to their lovers on their cell phones, they want, they want, they want... ! Kinda like all of us. Well, like I tell my kids, if you want something badly enough... go for it! And these two poets are doing just that.

Nick Fox has always supported the work of poets in Central and Northern Arizona. I mean the man comes down in hellfire snowstorms out of Flagstaff (in the middle of the week!) to support spoken word in our town! This is a guy dedicated to the whole scene, not just HIS part in it. He's always looking and talking and spreading the word about the word, and making contacts, and passing along the news. Now, he's on a national tour and all that's coming back to him... and he was not looking for that return, it just happens that way.

I've watched Nick Fox over the last year and a half. I've seen his art mature and grow and take on new aspects - new inspiration- that only comes from really hearing what you speak. He's still got a lot of that ol' Nick Fox "STEEERIKE THREEEE!" in much of his poetry ('cuz he loves it and it's good), but there's also a new aspect in his more recent work that expresses some of that introspection on cause & effect. Nick doesn't seem to express himself from that "I" pitfall... the poems that are mainly from the first person, although you know he's speaking from the heart. Nick often seems to be telling vignettes from other's perspectives, in a way that you KNOW he feels what they are feeling, and then applies the insight from his side of the plate.

I'd never heard "IQ" Sanders before, and it was one of those things that just screamed at me, when I DID hear him... WHY HAVEN'T I HEARD HIM BEFORE!? "IQ" Sanders uses the whole spectrum of presentation skills! I mean... voice, intonation, pause, song, body language, eye contact, frenzy, calm, position in the house/with the crowd. All of this NOT as a means to compensate for mediocre poetry... the poetry, Man, the poetry! This guy rips you a new artshole with his work on father issues, and politics, and religion, and community, and the blues (did I mention he's from Memphis) and..."Hey, it's just a street."

Both of these guys put on a helluva performance, AND they do a homerun with their workshop, as well ! If you get the chance to put these two in your lineup... DO IT !

Dan Seaman
Poetry Host & Founder
Prescott Area Poets Association
The M.A.D. Linguist
Prescott, AZ
papa_cman@msn.com
http://communities.msn.com/PrescottAreaPoetsAssociation

"... dance, like no one's looking"