On Friday, May 31, at 5 p.m., Poetry and Prose will present authors Nicole Walker and Jesse Sensibar, along with musical guest Leah Bee at the Sedona Public Library.
Poetry and Prose organizers recommend that if you are only going to make it to one Poetry and Prose show this year, this is probably the one. Walker is a very prolific author whose collection of essays, “Sustainability: A Love Story,” was recently made a finalist for the Nautilus Award.
Sensibar and his book, “Blood in the Asphalt: Prayers from the Highway,” won the 2019 Voila Award for book of the year. Leah Bee has charmed audiences with her eclectic and beautiful musical styles performed upon a variety of musical instruments since her arrival in the Verde Valley.
Walker is the author of the forthcoming collection, “The After-Normal: Brief, Alphabetical Essays on a Changing Planet” from Rose Metal Press. Her previous books include “Sustainability: A Love Story,” “Where the Tiny Things Are,” “Egg,” “Micrograms,” “Quench Your Thirst with Salt” and “This Noisy Egg.” She edited for Bloomsbury the essay collections “Science of Story” with Sean Prentiss and, with Margot Singer, “Bending Genre: Essays on Creative Nonfiction.” She is nonfiction editor at Diagram and professor at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
Sensibar is unafraid to die but terrified of dying alone. The product of the mean streets of the greatest Midwestern industrial cities of a time now gone, he loves big bore handguns, the uncluttered lines of old outlaw choppers, pawn shop jewelry, quiet bars and fuzzy creatures with equal abandon. He has a soft spot in his heart for The Virgin of Guadalupe, tide pools, house cats, quiet bars, innocent strippers and jaded children. He came west to the high desert of Arizona in the late 1980s and quickly disappeared down the rabbit hole of Southwestern drug culture. He reemerged in 2008, close to death and with a solid quarter of a century of hard drug abuse under his belt. He has a great many regrets.
Along the way, he has worked as a mechanic, heavy equipment operator, strip club bouncer, repossession agent, tattoo shop owner, private investigator, tow truck driver, snowplow operator, wildland firefighter and college English professor.
You can usually find him in the dying ponderosa pine forests surrounding Flagstaff, the old barrios of Tucson or out on the highway documenting the passing of his beloved and disappearing American West.
Sensibar’s book, “Blood in the Asphalt; Prayers from the Highway,” is a chronicle of how fragile life can be. The book chronicles a lifetime spent as a tow truck driver on the lonely highways of the American Southwest. Sensibar explores reinvention and resurrection through his photographs and his linked collection of short stories, mourning and celebrating loss, gratefulness and forgiveness.
Bee is a deep listener, composer and sound alchemist, pulling inspiration from a wild and ancient muse, through the reed of her being into time space for the benefit of beings. Among other instruments she plays a triple flute and a magical tree with strings on it. A beautiful vocalist, audiences are often moved by the beauty of her original lyrics. Come and join the Poetry and Prose Project, lovers of literature and other friends on Friday, May 31, at 5 p.m. at the Sedona Public Library. Poetry and Prose Project shows are always hosted by award winning author, science fiction poet and professional storyteller Gary Every.
