Remembering Shappy and The klute
and other goodbyes (for now).
It's been one hell of a slog since we last convened; we lost two slam poetry nerd icons in one year. Please follow our links to learn more about the work of SHAPPY SEASHOLTZ and Bernard Schober, who performed as THE KLUTE.
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There is an amazing archive on YouTube of the work of Jeff "Shappy" Seasholtz, founder of the Nerd Slam, longtime barkeep and host at the Bowery Poetry Club, and all-around talent. You can CHECK IT OUT RIGHT HERE.
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Bernard Schober AKA The Klute was a revelation of humor and rage, of fandom and science. Most likely to punch a Nazi, you can find a number of The Klute's poems on various YouTube channels and you can visit THE KLUTE'S WEBSITE HERE.
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I met and befriended both of these men via the National Poetry Slam in the early to mid 2000's; in an environment where everyone wants to hold court, both Shap and Klute often did, not by being the loudest (most of the time) but by being accessible and genuinely empathetic. I miss them both so much. Shappy's inventing the Nerd Slam side event paved the way for me feeling comfortable with my own nerdy pursuits, and from Nerd Slam was born Aim For The Head and MultiVerse and Extreme Championship Poetry and ultimately, FreezeRay. I will forever be in their debt, creatively and personally.
It's the hottest summer on record here in Oklahoma City. We're still in a pandemic. We're fighting like hell to keep the wolves at bay. Even this issue and the accompanying e-book have been plagued by delays (every pun intended including COVID bouts by most of the staff), but here we are. Please let these words be a balm, even for a few. Hold on to your pockets of joy. Pour one out for the fallen, and lift up the emerging voices.
It is also time for me to announce that FreezeRay is going on hiatus for a while. What does that mean, ultimately? It means no new submissions or new issues for a while. 22 issues since 2014 is one hell of a first run and I am so proud of every poet, writer, and artist who has trusted us with their work and understood what we wanted to do with our nerdy little niche of a journal. And the editors. Oh my goodness, the editors, past and present. Doing this out of love for 8 years. Poring over thousands of submissions during that time. I can never thank y'all enough. When the FreezeSignal goes back up, I hope to see you at the Hall of Justice for another round of snark and wonder and undying love of the artform.
Hug your peeps. Drink all the water. Touch grass. We're super proud of this issue and we'll see you down the road.
Onward.
Rob Sturma
Editor-In-Chief
FreezeRay Poetry
It's the hottest summer on record here in Oklahoma City. We're still in a pandemic. We're fighting like hell to keep the wolves at bay. Even this issue and the accompanying e-book have been plagued by delays (every pun intended including COVID bouts by most of the staff), but here we are. Please let these words be a balm, even for a few. Hold on to your pockets of joy. Pour one out for the fallen, and lift up the emerging voices.
It is also time for me to announce that FreezeRay is going on hiatus for a while. What does that mean, ultimately? It means no new submissions or new issues for a while. 22 issues since 2014 is one hell of a first run and I am so proud of every poet, writer, and artist who has trusted us with their work and understood what we wanted to do with our nerdy little niche of a journal. And the editors. Oh my goodness, the editors, past and present. Doing this out of love for 8 years. Poring over thousands of submissions during that time. I can never thank y'all enough. When the FreezeSignal goes back up, I hope to see you at the Hall of Justice for another round of snark and wonder and undying love of the artform.
Hug your peeps. Drink all the water. Touch grass. We're super proud of this issue and we'll see you down the road.
Onward.
Rob Sturma
Editor-In-Chief
FreezeRay Poetry
ABOUT FREEZERAY
FreezeRay is a quarterly literary journal dedicated to the poetry of pop culture. We seek to explore our relationships between the pop culture we consume (comic books, movies, television, music, video games, etc) and ourselves. We recognize that the things we love can be problematic. We recognize that the things we love can be transformative. We believe in the healing power of binge-watching and cosplay and co-op gaming and surprise albums dropping like gifts from heaven and we are unapologetic about the things we love.
If you like what we do here, please consider donating to help defray the costs of running this journal. Just click on the patreon logo below to invest in all the future nerd lit! Every dollar helps!
THE FREEZERAY STAFF
ROB STURMA (Editor-In-Chief), when not doing some form of mild accounting, is a pop culture pundit and the editor of Aim For The Head, a zombie-themed poetry anthology and MultiVerse (superhero poems!), both on Write Bloody Publishing. He has work in a number of keen anthologies including Dark Ink, Working Stiff, Learn Then Burn 2, and Don't Blame The Ugly Mug. His newest poetry collection Head V Heart is currently available from Moon Tide Press. He lives in Oklahoma City, OK, where he hangs out at the Red Dirt Poetry open mic, lives for levels of schlock, plays his modded Super Nintendo, and stays forever in love with all things pro wrestling.
HIS OTHER WEBSITE: robsturma.com
HIS OTHER WEBSITE: robsturma.com
Photo credit: Daniel Schaefer - @OutlierImagery
LAUREN BULLOCK (Poetry Editor) is a queer multiracial writer, performer, teaching artist, events organizer, and model. Her work appears on AFROPUNK.com, Button Poetry, The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and more. Lauren earned acclaim for her pop culture commentary through editorials on Black Nerd Problems as well as serving as poetry editor for FreezeRay Poetry. To date, she has organized 7 international and regional arts conferences or festivals, and 5 monthly series. Lauren’s modeling work has also been featured by publications such as Gmaro Magazine and Out-and-Out Magazine. When not creating she enjoys fighting crime as a costumed vigilante of many aliases.
Find her at www.golaurenbullock.com
Find her at www.golaurenbullock.com
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HANALENA FENNEL (Poetry Editor), when asked about herself, says she “was born on a goat farm to a Jewish hippie; after that, things got weird.”
HanaLena believes that life is a verb, defined by action, and love uncaged is infinite. Most importantly, she is the proven champion of all things geek. She credits the vibrant Southern California poetry community with helping her find her voice and always strives to support the voices of others. She works as an artist, poet, mentor and can be found providing weekly prompts to an online community through her Patreon page. www.patreon.com/HanaLenaFennel |
ERIC MORAGO (Poetry Editor) is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet who believes performance carries as much importance on the page, as it does off. He is the author of What We Ache For (Moon Tide Press, 2010) and Here for the Friction (Orange Ocean Press, 2012). Currently he teaches for Red Hen Press' Writing in the Schools Program, is an associate reviewer for Poetix.net, and is a contributing blogger for Geektasticpodcast.com. Eric has an M.F.A in Creative Writing from California State University, Long Beach, and lives in Los Angeles where he's still waiting for his mutant powers to manifest. His Facebook page is HERE!
ADRIENNE NOVY (Poetry Editor) is a teaching artist and Bettering American Poetry nominee currently living in Saint Paul, MN. She is the author of trisomy 22 and Crowd Surfing With God (Half Mystic Press, 2018). Her work can be found in FreezeRay Poetry, Harpoon Review, Button Poetry, NAILED Magazine, Rising Phoenix Press, and Maudlin House, among others. She loves My Chemical Romance and she loves being alive.
MIKKEL SNYDER (Co-Publisher) is a technical writer by day, microfiction author and poet by night. They first got involved with the poetry community through WU-SLam, Washington University’s premier spoken word poetry group, where they spent four years in various organizational roles, but most predominantly techie and resident multimedia nerd (and the skills they learned still come in handy, most notably amateur camera work). Their writing has been featured at decomP, The Legendary and is forthcoming in Microliterature. A biracial nerd, homestuck, St. Louis resident, and alchemist in training, Mikkel loves giant robots and DC superheroes more than some people they know as seen at their tumblr, chimericnotion.tumblr.com.
CHRISTINE TEMPLETON (Art Editor) was born in the summer of ’87 under a balsamic moon and is convinced that makes her a bona fide witch and at the very least, a part time ghost hunter. Her first vivid memory as a child was watching Night of the Living Dead in her parents’ room clutching the bed frame in terror. She has sought out that same terror ever since, only for it to constantly elude her. A UNC Asheville graduate with a double major in art and mass communications, her works have received accolades, been published, and on display at various North Carolina galleries. When she’s not busy trying to catch ghosts or scare herself silly, she takes pictures that are blurry on purpose. Those blurry pictures, among other art projects, can be found at http://christinetempleton.tumblr.com/
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ELLEN WEBRE (Poetry Editor) is a biracial, first-generation Taiwanese-American poet, born in Hong Kong and raised in California. She attended the Creative Writing Conservatory of the Orange County High School of the Arts, and received a degree in screenwriting at Chapman University. She is currently acting as a social media marketing specialist and videographer for Moon Tide Press and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry. Ellen’s debut book, A Burning Lake of Paper Suns, was released in October 2021 with Moon Tide Press. Her poem “Metaphors for My Body in Midwinter” has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2021. Ellen’s other poems have most recently been published in FreezeRay Poetry, Sh!t Men Say to Me Anthology in Response to Toxic Masculinity, DARK INK: A Horror Anthology, and Voicemail Poems.
https://www.facebook.com/ellenwebrepoetry/ |
STAFF EMERITUS
AMANDA MATHEWS (Art Editor) beat Spider-Man in arm wrestling (I wouldn’t have believed it if I had I not heard from his own lack of a mouth). When she’s not pinning the web-slinger’s arm to the table, she spends time in her secret lair animorphing gerbils into pop art sculptures of Richard Gere. Her work has shown at MH Gallery in Chelsea, NYC and remains on view to this day on her mom’s refrigerator. (Editor's note: Amanda was the visionary who created our initial logo and grabbed a ton of amazing artists for our first three issues! Check out her own art at her Facebook page!)
JASON BAYANI (Poetry Editor) is a graduate of Saint Mary’s MFA program in Creative Writing. He is a Kundiman fellow and a veteran of the National Poetry Slam scene whose work has been published in Fourteen Hills, Muzzle Magazine, Mascara Review, the National Poetry Slam anthology, Rattapallax, Write Bloody’s classroom anthology–– Learn Then Burn, and other publications. As a member of 7 National Poetry Slam teams, he’s been a National Poetry Slam finalist and represented Oakland at the International World Poetry Slam. He is also one of the founding members of the Filipino American Spoken Word troupe, Proletariat Bronze, and has been an organizer for the Asian and Pacific Islander Poetry and Spoken Word Summit. His first book, “Amulet” was published in 2013 through Write Bloody Press and has garnered acclaim in literary magazines such as Zyzzyva and Glint. Check out his dope website!
EIREAN BRADLEY (Poetry Editor) is the author of 2 full length books of poetry "the I in Team" and "the little big book of go kill yourself" on University of Hell Press. He is also the poetry curator over at the scrappy lil lit mag Drunk in a Midnight Choir and has been published in several anthologies and lit mags because he doesn't suck. He is a fully fledged music GEEK who was one of the founders of the BigAss Boombox Festival (a 2 day 50 band power pop extravaganza that takes place in Portland, OR and Seattle, WA) and he wants you to know that if you write a poem about Rush he will love you to pieces. He lives in Denver, CO and no, he isn't stoned all of the time.
DALTON DAY (Poetry Editor) spent many days of his childhood looking for radioactive spiders. A recent graduate of UNC Asheville with a Bachelor’s in creative writing, he now spends his days making poems and not playing the banjo. Dalton’s work has appeared in Foxing Quarterly, decomP, The Legendary, and the forthcoming Ghost House Review, among others. His first chapbook, Supernova Factory, was released in May 2013 by On the Cusp Press. His new chapbook FAKE KNIFE, will be the first chapbook released by FreezeRay Press. He can be found at myshoesuntied.tumblr.com, where he posts poems among pretty pictures of drag queens.
Photo Credit: Urayoán Noel
MALCOLM FRIEND (Poetry Editor) is a poet originally from the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. He received his BA from Vanderbilt University, where he was the 2014 recipient of the Merrill Moore Prize for Poetry, and his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of the chapbook mxd kd mixtape (Glass Poetry), and has received awards and fellowships from organizations including CantoMundo, VONA/Voices of Our Nations, Backbone Press, and the University of Memphis. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including La Respuesta magazine, the Fjords Review’s Black American Edition, Vinyl, Word Riot, The Acentos Review, Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, and Pretty Owl Poetry.
JULIAN RANDALL (Poetry Editor) is a Living Black poet from Chicago. A 2016 Callaloo fellow and two time national college slam competitor, he traveled to the 2015 National College Slam (CUPSI) earning the title of Best Poet. He currently works as a teaching artist with the Philly Youth Poetry Movement. His work has appeared in Winter Tangerine Review, The Killens Review, and Pluck! A Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture. He wants to talk to you about Static Shock, Kanye West and Blackness in the early 2000's.
GRAE ROSE (Poetry Editor) is a part time research assistant and a full time nerd. They have competed in a number of national and regional slam competitions, including the National Poetry Slam, Southern Fried Poetry Slam, Southwest Shootout, and the Individual World Poetry Slam (although, since moving to the Netherlands in late 2014, slams have been few and far between). Grae has been featured in publications such as Borderline, Yellow Chair Review, and the Write Bloody anthologies Aim for the Head and MultiVerse. They recently graduated from Utrecht University with an MA in Conflict Studies and Human Rights, and is not sure where to go from here.
JOSHUA WALDROP (Social Media Intern) is a poet, podcaster, dreamer, and stand-up comedian based out of Fullerton, CA. Josh is in the process of finishing his BA double majoring in Literary Journalism and English with the creative writing emphasis in poetry from University of California, Irvine, during which time he served as Editor and Publisher of the poetry journal, “Accretion.” Whilst completing his undergrad work at Golden West College, Josh won several awards for his writing in both poetry and prose and served as the Founding President of the campus writing club, The Writers Bloc. Josh also served as Managing Editor for two issues of the resurrected campus Literary Journal Voices. But…enough of the blah blah stuff. Josh wants you to know that he thinks stand-up comedy and professional wrestling are America’s two greatest art forms (not necessarily in that order). Josh also wants you to know that he happens to be FreezeRay co-founder Rob Sturma’s favorite poet, comedian, wrestling commentator…well overall, just his favorite guy around, and also urgently wants you to know that this paragraph was ABSOLUTELY NOT WRITTEN IN THE 3RD PERSON BY JOSHUA AT ALL, so you can trust that it is 100% accurate. (Especially that part involving Sturma.)