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P O W E L L, W y o. - After a rousing introduction to slam poetry last spring, Park County will get a chance to sample the lyrical stylings of Junkyard Ghost Revival, a slam poetry group, at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25, in the Nelson Performing Arts Center Auditorium.
The junkyard trio of Derrick Brown, Anis Mojgani and Buddy Wakefield will be joined for this performance by Andrea Gibson.
Collectively, Brown, Mojgani and Wakefield represent six of the nine individual national and world Poetry Slam titles since 2003. Gibson's no slouch either - she won the very first Women of the World Poetry Slam in 2008 and finished in the top three at the 2006 and '07 World Poetry Slams.
Brown, a former paratrooper for the 82nd Airborne, performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, La Sorbonne in Paris and The Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City. He's opened for Indie rock act, Cold War Kids, White Stripes and others, and his work has been featured in books with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins, Viggo Mortensen, Jeff Buckley and Jim Carrol.
Mojgani is one of only two people to claim National Poetry Slam Individual Champion more than once. He also took first at France's 2007 World Cup Poetry Slam and has been on HBO and NPR. Wakefield is the other two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champion. He's been featured on NPR, the BBC, HBO's Def Poetry Jam, and opened for both Ani DiFranco and Sage Francis. He also picked up the International Poetry Festival top award in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and subsequently saw his works translated to Dutch.
The program starts with an open mike for area poets to share their work. Admission is free.