Shokufeh is... home

Awesome!!!!! I don't understand the scoring, but I didn't read the scoring FAQ...but I'm so happy for Anis! Score!

having seen his competition 2 years ago... it's awesome and not at all surprising all at the same time! congrats, Anis!

i found this lovely online reflection/report on Anis' performance and thought it was pretty cool he shared status championship w/a woman:

Now, Albuquerque has been an amazing, amazing National Poetry Slam; aside from a few last-minute schedule changes, everything else has literally run without a hitch. We've spent the last week telling Danny Solis and Don McIver and the host of unnamed but fantastic volunteers what a great show/party they've been running and how thankful we are at what a good time they've enabled us to have. So, when every last stage light went out at the El Rey, leaving Anis in total darkness a third of the way through his poem, the shock in the room was almost tangible.

There was a gasp, and then some rustling; some light booing started, but was quickly shushed. Throughout all of this, in total darkness, Anis pushed on, not missing a single beat; seated so close to the stage, I could just see the shadows of his motions, his intensity totally unaffected by the lack of light, the distracted crowd, and Pilot le Hot, the French slammaster, who was shooting off his camera flashbulb as fast as it could recharge in the hopes of illuminating the poet for just a few seconds at a time.

There are poets whose poetry suffers deeply without visual aid: sometimes the physical presence of the poet, her power, his stance, all of those are necessary to the audience's enjoyment of the piece. Anis is not one of those poets. If anything, the shades of his voice, his energy, the color he had obviously worked hard to fill in the performance of the piece, all came through in the dark in a way nobody, probably not even the poet, could have anticipated. Plus, it was pretty fucking impressive (pardon my French) that, a consummate professional, he actually seemed completely unfazed by the abrupt lack of lighting. Somehow, the house managed to get the lights up just a few moments before Anis finished his poem --exactly enough time for the audience to wildly applaud, calm down, and let Anis deliver the end of the piece before we all rose to our feet, applauding not just the piece (which, frankly, a lot of the audience probably missed most of) but the unflappability of the poet on stage.

It says something for all the competing poets, too, that the judges were not particularly impressed by Anis' ability to overcome the lighting mishap. His 28.6 was not the highest score of the night, or even the round; it placed him firmly in the middle of the pack and by no means confirmed a slot in finals. It was as though the judges simply expected that a poet of this caliber would, of course, be able to perform without lights, or a mic, or a stage, or whatever might have fallen though. I'm impressed at the respect their scores reflected.