When asked where he’ll be in 10 years, Seth Walker, who has electrified the Texas poetry slam scene since 2007, says plainly, “in jail, dead, or famous.” Just 24, he’s been winding his way through the West, taking no prisoners in slam competitions at virtually every venue. He often wins or places second and is known for an unrelentingly honest, raw stream of emotion, revolutionary spirit, unabashed spirituality, and make-no-excuse sense of politics.

On stage or one-on-one in an interview, Walker’s self-awareness crackles in unashamed clarity. Like the great Allen Ginsberg, he shoulders effortlessly and uncomplicatedly the contemporary burdens of his own existence and that of his society. More importantly, in making no bones admitting that he once utterly despised anything and everything that was American, he now is proud of what he has seen through his travels which have taken him to virtually every city and town of importance in the Western half of the United States.

The critical turn in Walker’s artistic life came after Hurricane Katrina and he returned to Houston developing not only his craft in performance poetry but also working with many of the city’s nonprofit organizations serving economically disadvantaged groups as well as those affected by domestic abuse. He also works with many schools and local colleges and universities in the Houston metropolitan area.

He also embraces the Transcendentalism and civil disobedience of Henry David Thoreau, plainly admitting, “I don’t pay taxes.”

His spoken gifts are undeniable. His rhythms, cadences and freestyle verse pounce upon his listeners with compelling eloquence devoid of cliché. In “Immigrant Nation,” he manages narrative structure so naturally, juxtaposes language with unfailingly punctual efficiency, and suggests metaphorical imagery conveying an entire political debate in a way that no columnist, policy expert, or political leader could satisfactorily accomplish in a blog, newspaper, or magazine piece of prose. The precocious genius of his language is almost frightening in its originality. How can one so young sustain such poetic and artistic authority?

Walker’s passion is his cultural networking, traveling from city to city, making enough just to get to the next stop. “I arrived in Boise with $12 and came to Salt Lake with $30,” he says. And, embedded in the rawness of his work is a poignant sense that the youth of his generation are more than anxious to reclaim the genuine unfettered roots of the American experience without the necessity of government or multinational corporate sanctions.

Walker’s creative pulse took hold when he started writing journals at the age of 8, feeling no compulsion to hold back whatever was on his mind. Only after his mother had confiscated his writings did he create a metaphorical language code only decipherable by him. For Walker, journal writing became the pretext for eradicating those pesky neuroses that inhibit genuine expression. And, while like some of his peers he eschews preordained sociocultural and sexual stereotypes, he ventures into blue ocean territory, pushing for a revolutionary sense of what the Turkish call the vatan, an unspoiled sense of the American homeland. In a sense, it is going back to what some considered the true genius of the American experience – an exceptionalism rooted not in politics or ideology but in an ecstatic natural sense of the individual spirit effectively communicated through the performing magic of poets like Walker.

He will perform on the Big Mouth Cafe stage Sunday, June 28, at 9 p.m.

http://www.selectiveecho.com/ben-garchar-charis-tobias-seth-walker-three-daring-young-creative-spirits-at-the-utah-arts-festival/

When I was growing up listening to the great travelers sing songs of the road, I always wondered to my self, “What’s the big deal about the road?”
They always talk about the love for it and addiction to it; their respect for it and awareness of its potentiality for cruelty.
Now I know that the songs they wrote are the truth in a flattering form to lure the fire flies into the bug zappers…..
The road is life…

Every day I:

Eat- Anything, at least once everyday I need to find something consumable to not starve. Though I have lost weight, I am keeping up my strength.

Sleep at least 6 hours- Which is the hardest thing to do. If it’s day light, I’m on the streets working or on the phone booking, or networking or traveling. If it’s dark I’m either, performing, working my way into a gig somewhere, trying to find food or shelter for the night without spending any money, networking, promoting, or traveling.

Getting to my gigs- Cause that’s how I justify the title “Professional Poet” and my main source of living (monetary and otherwise).

Mostly I couch surf with poets. On occasion I’ll announce from the mic that I participate in the “adopt a poet” program, so, for that evening, I’m free to a good home. It usually gets me a less comfortable stay than my truck, but a much better story.

So the road is just a matter of living. Literally staying alive long enough to get to the next gig….. that’s it.
I think the big trick to the road is that it’s so fucking scary when you think about it, but so nonchalant in daily life.
It’s been a real process of personal understanding and finally getting life. I understand it now. Why I’m here, why we’re all here, why we do everything we do. I finally get it. It’s hilarious…. And so simple that if people were to finally wake up and see it… as soon as they did, they’d overlook it, titling it “too obvious”

You see my friends…. We are here……….. to be
And do it the best that we feel like doing it.
Each of us is doing something, right now. As you are reading this all is as it should be

Why do bad things happen to good people?
There is no such thing as bad or good….. those are labels that we assign.
My mom went through a divorce and labeled it “the worst thing to ever happen to her” Then a few years later met the real love of her life, who’s now the man I proudly call Pops. Now they have each other, but due to presence there will inevitably be an absence. Then that will be labeled bad. Though all of these things are dependant on each other in a linear timeline, some are labeled “good” but some are labeled “bad”

Like a Wave function, there are crests and valleys, up and down, but no good or bad, just opinion, prerogative, perspective, definition, momentary dramatization for the experience of a raw emotion.

We are here to be,
To experience everything,
To feel both pleasure and pain
Light and dark
Hot and cold
High and low

But good and bad
Joyful and depressed
Are personal color coatings we embrace for tinted perspectives

Is God real? …… to you… if you believe so……. absolutely ……
What is the purpose of life? To do the best you can to play your role as you feel led to.
And while you’re doing it, you might as well enjoy it.
Even the suffering.
We all occasionally enjoy a good haunted house to experience fear in a controlled fashion
But there is no way for fear to get out of control, unless we refuse to harness it within our selves.
Some people ask me if it’s scary just living on the wind…. Kind of …. At times…..
But I’ve learned now, that the worst thing that could happen to me is death
And then I’d be dead, so at that point…..
It really wouldn’t matter to me…..

So though I’m sure all of you have your really complicated world theorems and all….
And you go right ahead and do that.
You spend things on “credit” and acquire depts.
Live in things you don’t build and can’t afford, where you are a slave to your property.
You don’t own it, it owns you!
You work 50 hours a week to pay for your house and car!
Who owns whom?
I live
Every day
I breathe
As often as possible
I smile
Every breath
And I will do so till I can do so no longer
Thus
Every day I will eat
Every night I will sleep
And in between I will live
And tell the world
That the greatest joy in life is freedom
And freedom is in the mind!

Since being jacked in Portland i’ve had e-mails pouring in from people sending me love.    Two people even stepped up with some donations to help me get the window repaired.   Thank you.  I appreciate our community of friends and how beautiful we all can be when we hear that one of us are in need.  Life is a brilliant experience.  I’ve realized through this whole thing that we cannot be defeated unless we allow our selves to be conquered.   I’ve had lots of comments and messages telling me to re-write the memoirs, but i recognize that i could never be able to replace the poetry that i wrote in there.   I promise though, that when i get back to houston, i will settle in and write a new book of my travels and do my best to fill it full of more new poetry, as well as the old ones.  

this situation seems to have been meant to teach me a few valuable lessons about housing treasures and the power of the people backing this as a movement.   I swear to you all that i am no longer “touring.”   at this point, i’m on a mission to awaken as many people as i can touch.  it’s getting to be like a mission.  low ammo, rationing food, water, and fuel.  in this economy traveling as a poet living off of cds sold is rough…. but i’ve seen god in the eyes of the younger generation.  when you get them excited they beam lighthouse rays out their pores and darkness trembles.  all they need are good role models.  good people standing up for what’s right, not what’s acceptable and normal.

to keep up with where i am and what’s going on, the good bad and good fugly… go to newly revised sethwalkerpoetry.com or twitter.com/sethwalkerpoet

I Love you guys for real…… for real….
Seth Walker

http://voxinforma.com/?page_id=428

or if you have itunes click on the link below

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=312021517

Please submit all hate mail through the “Contact Seth” link.  All rebuttals will be read and considered, please include an e-mail address if you would like to further discuss the issues covered.  Seth is always open to new information. 

“I’m a fact man, so I have to change when the facts change.    Truth is the light at the end of the tunnel that sets us free.  Therefore, we should all, without ego, seek the truth, even if we must renounce our previous belief systems in light of new awakenings.  The day that the Truths are spread as much as the lies, we will see a new world of enlightenment beyond anything previously conceivable.”  ~Seth Walker