Press Release – San Jose, California (USA): It was announced today that famed MMA broadcaster Mauro Ranallo will voice the audiobook version of the acclaimed memoir Caged. Written by accomplished MMA fighter and award-winning writer Cameron Conaway, Caged has garnered respect and admiration amongst combat sports pundits. Now, Ranallo will help bring the words of Caged to life.

“Mauro Ranallo is a true wordsmith, and his voice is the most distinctive in all of MMA,” stated Conaway. “As an artist allowing my work to be transformed by another artist, it was only natural that I’d choose whoever creatively intrigued me the most.”

“It’s an honor to be involved with a project like Caged,” said Ranallo. “I love the book, and I believe it’s one that needs to be read and heard. I’m excited to get to recording it!”

In addition, it was revealed recently that the Kindle version of “Caged” is available on Amazon.com as a free download today and tomorrow in order to celebrate National Poetry Month. In fact, it is currently the number one sports book in the free category on the website.

Caged is the true story of a young man who overcomes a family background and his own inner torment by learning to channel his frustrations into the physical world of mixed martial arts fighting and the cerebral world of poetry and writing. It teaches the value of personal reflection, how life’s most painful moments can lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of human nature, and just what is possible when optimism and determination combine to overcome tough odds. Caged shows how the pursuit of two seemingly disparate passions helped a struggling boy blossom into a simple man. The result is a literary and lyrical philosophical journey into the heart and mind of a modern-day warrior.

Mauro Ranallo is a celebrated play-by-play broadcaster who originally made his impact on the MMA world with Pride Fighting Championships. He then held the role for EliteXC, and can now be heard as the voice of Showtime’s Strikeforce programming. In addition to his commentating duties, Mauro also currently hosts “The MMA Show with Mauro Ranallo,” a daily podcast featuring the biggest names in MMA as his guests.

For more information on Mauro Ranallo, please visit http://www.mauroranallo.com/. Mauro can also be found on Twitter @MauroRanallo.

Contact: Phil Lanides
Publicist/Owner, Crossfire Media Group
(408) 439-3245
Phil@CrossfireMG.com
@CrossfireMedia

About Crossfire Media Group
Founded in late 2008, Crossfire Media Group (formerly known as Fight of Your Life Communications) helped blaze a trail for freelance publicists in the world of MMA. The company has since expanded into the mainstream sports, literature, and videogame industries. CMG has worked with a virtual “who’s who” in MMA, including UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones, former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Rashad Evans, MMA legend Frank Shamrock, former WEC Lightweight Champion Ben Henderson, UFC fighter Brian Stann, UFC fighter Carlos Condit, Revgear, and Strikeforce. Clients of CMG have been also been featured on media outlets such as “The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon,” ESPN, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, Sherdog, MMAWeekly, MMAJunkie, Yahoo! Sports, amongst others.

Garth is a musician, a poet, a writer, and a loser. He is currently in his senior year of High School, and will go on to study Neuro and Cognitive Sciences at The University of Arizona. He has been writing poetry for the last year, and is also heavily involved with playing, writing and performing music.

The Life Store

So, I was walking down to the life store,
Musta been, what, 3 or 4 years ago,
Dejected, my head was down in the dirt,
In my arms was a box full of me.
Of hopes and lies and fears and dreams;
I grabbed everything I could get my hands on,
Stuffed it in, Taped it shut,
Slapped down a sticker with “This side up” on top,
And kicked it down the stairs.
Clunk.         Clunk.         Clunk.
As it hit the steps,
It pulled the ripcord on my heart,
And with a yawn, it came on,
A sputtering two-stroke motor,
Stuck in first. Hate.
Hate you, Hate her, Hate this, Hate that,
The government, The world, The pope, Myself.
Hatred.

When the box hit the ground,
I slid down the banisters,
And, right before I got to the end,
I jumped, wanting to fly,
But instead I hit the ground and cried.

After an hour or two,
Maybe a week,
I got up, weak to the knees,
And bleeding and shaken and god please,
I needed something to work out for once.
So I picked up the box,
And went to the store.

When I walked in, a little bell on the door went,
“ting-a-ling”
I frowned and looked around,
Afraid that someone I knew would see me there.
I placed the box on the counter,
Looked at the clerk and said:
“Gimme everything you got.”
He opened the box, Looked inside,
His eyes went wide and he leaned back and sighed and said:
“You got it all already here.
A brain, bleeding fear,
A heart, torn a part,
A pair of kidneys, screaming for love.”
I shrugged.
“Then build me a castle.”
And he did.

It touched the sky, with towers and steeples,
Teeming with dancers and artists and peoples,
Flags fluttering facetiously,
Freaks performing freakishly,
They came from miles away,
To see the gory success story,
Of my former glory, stacked up in
17 stories and an aviary.

But, yesterday, it collapsed,
The walls came down,
The bricks and the building littered the ground,
And all around were little bits of my broken heart.
Now, in pieces, finally freed,
My heart gave a start and upshifted,
Into second.
And all of the hate and the fear disappeared.
And I turned to love instead.
I love the dirt,
I love the pieces of my castle,
I love the pain and the people I hurt,
But most of all,
I love you.

So I picked up the box,
From so many years ago,
And walked down to the life store.
The bell on the door went “ting-a-ling”
When I walked in,
But I didn’t give a damn
What anyone else thought anymore.

I slammed the box on the counter,
Stared the clerk right in the eye,
And said,
“Gimme all you got.”
He opened the box, his eyes got wide,
He leaned back and sighed and said:
“This is an empty box.”
And I laughed and said:
“Now that’s more like it”

 

Aphasia

I have a love-hate relationship with words.
They sometimes flow off the roof of my mouth,
A loquacious process of verbal synthesis,
Strong, proud, loud, above the crowd,
Motivating, Scintillating, Awe-creating.
But oftener, they trip and stumble,
Syllables set to tumble-dry,
I mumble and lose my head.

I want to tell you how radiantly
The sun shines out of your eyes,
How incredibly beautiful you are.
I want to sing you the songs
Of ten thousand generations,
A veneration of you,
A mitigation of all they told you was true
About how much better you should be.
But you’re already perfect to me.

Instead, my letters change places,
I somehow say faces instead of spaces,
I pause when I think,
And I think a lot,
But all the things I’m thinking can’t quite seem
To come out right.
So I’m left with dust.
It clogs up my gums, sticks to its guns,
And rusts my ironclad thoughts.

The words get stuck on the tip of my tongue,
So I cut it off for you, and turn it into
A pen.
And all of the things that I couldn’t say
Flow freely from the ink of the point of my
Trusty Montblanc Tongue.
I slice my arms open, and let them
Bleed into the inkwell, in hopes that
My blood will leave a better impression of my feelings
Than my words can even dream of.
I dip my hands in ink
And smear them across the page,
And I pray that maybe somehow
I can leave my inky little fingerprints
Somewhere on your heart.

So when I say “I love you”
Know that it is all I have,
That I will scream it until it
Rings in your ears, Off the walls, and
Back into your soul,
But I mean so much more than that.
The very words that won your love
Can’t adequately express how much I love you back.

I have a love-hate relationship with words.
We usually get along just fine,
But sometimes I have to sleep on the couch.
I need them more than anything though,
Because without them, I wouldn’t have you.
So when I say that you life up my light,
You know what I really mean.

Caged: Memoirs of a Cage-Fighting Poet by Cameron Conaway, published by Threed Press (an author created imprint of MindStir Media) last September, recently won Best Book in the Reader Views Mid-Atlantic category. To celebrate National Poetry Month, we are offering the digital version for free from April 7 – April 11, 2012 in the Kindle Store! Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. You can download one of the FREE Kindle Reading apps for iPhone, iPad, etc.

Book Description:

Accomplished MMA fighter and award-winning writer Cameron Conaway presents in Caged the true story of a young man who overcomes a family background and his own inner torment by learning to channel his frustrations into the physical world of mixed martial arts fighting and the cerebral world of poetry and writing. It teaches the value of personal reflection, how life’s most painful moments can lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of human nature, and just what is possible when optimism and determination combine to overcome tough odds. Caged shows how the pursuit of two seemingly disparate passions helped a struggling boy blossom into a simple man. The result is a literary and lyrical philosophical journey into the heart and mind of a modern-day warrior.

Praise:

“I was inspired.”
-Ken Shamrock, UFC Hall of Famer

“Cameron Conaway’s fierce, fearless memoir offers a clear-eyed look at a brutal childhood, an
angry father, and a son’s gathering demons. In the end, though, the author carves his way
forward through an unlikely combination of mixed martial arts, poetry, and human connection.
This book never fails to surprise, and along the way Conaway gives voice and hope to all
young men who must learn to grow up and out of their fathers’ footsteps or risk falling into the
same hole.”
-Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic & Desire

“I couldn’t stop reading. Conaway’s writing style is as captivating as his story. He takes you
inside the heart, mind and soul of a fighter. He is the voice for all fighters that battle their
demons inside the cage.”
-Glen Cordoza, author for Victory Belt Publishing

“Poetical version of Jiu-Jitsu!”
-Saulo Ribeiro, World BJJ Champion, author of Jiu-Jitsu University

Conaway presents us with a candid story of a never-give-up attitude and an appreciation of
life despite all of its challenges. His expressionism effectively details his endurance in battling
his demons through mixed martial arts and the human spirit. Caged shows us how something
many consider brutal can actually be a vehicle for achieving purpose and a better understanding
of ourselves.”
-Jim Arvanitis, Black Belt Magazine’s 2009 Instructor of the Year

There are writers who have ideas, and there are those who have craft. Conaway is both.”
-Lisa Hickey, CEO of Good Men Media Inc.

About Cameron Conaway:

Cameron Conaway has come to be known as “The Warrior Poet.” He teaches Shakespeare for Ottawa University, is an award-nominated teacher of creative writing for Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth and writes about MMA nutrition for ESPN-affiliate Sherdog.com. He’s received the Richard Russo Award for Creative Writing, is an NSCA-Certified Personal Trainer, was the University of Arizona’s 2007-2009 Poet-in-Residence and is 2-0 at 155lbs as an MMA fighter. His debut collection of poems, Until You Make the Shore, will be released in January 2012 from Salmon Poetry. Cameron has trained with Renzo Gracie and is now studying Muay Thai in Thailand under sponsorship from WhatsYourFight.com. Subscribe to his blog at www.cameronconaway.com.

For the linked story on Storify click here.

The Ofi Press Literary Magazine: International Poetry and Fiction from Mexico City, recently interviewed me. Here’s an except:

1.Why write?

 For me, the two primary reasons for life are (1) to help each other and (2) to document our experience here. This encompasses not only all of science, art and learning but also life in general. Helping the elderly man cross the street, holding the door for the person coming into the gas station, etc. Writing allows me to document and – especially from the responses I’ve received from CAGED – help others. Whether it’s a journalistic piece investigating sex slavery or a short poem told from the perspective of the mosquito, it all adds to the well of awareness. I believe this increases our ability to listen respectfully to the perspectives of others while also seeking out those new. Short answer: For peace.

Click here to read the full interview.

Three poems from E. Parkison

Honestly

Still attic, unfinished – light bulbs
Hang from a plywood ceiling. Old Floor.
For two years the north window
Tipped in, open:

Gaping mouths of the damned slack-jawed
Idiots in town – drunks, toothless scrapmen,

Women with eyes half-lidded. Exhausted, stained
Sweat pants, T-shirts unable, finally,
To cover doughy guts, stretch marks –

Accusatory cracks across windshields, wood tailgates.
When my father said a contractor would do it,
Cheap, I said nothing. It is, after
All, his house. Well, my mom’s, since the divorce,
But I still think it’s sad – finished or not.
 

Last Night

Help me.
Be with me.

We shouldn’t gather
Such slight breezes, and expect
To collect a tempest.
The breath that catches

In my throat doesn’t
Graze your ear: part crescent, part
Curling wave.

An illness grips the village, and the horizon
Shows it – pink lights blinking
Out, one after the other undoing

The constellations grafted
To the few, short streets. The open air

Darkening, steam settling in the small kitchen,
I don’t hear

The whistle of the kettle, yet –
Stay with me. Help me,

Leave the closet open
Just enough to read me

A book I didn’t read.
Be with me.

Symmetry I: The Airport

I know I didn’t see you as you
Jauntily stepped through the gate
To board the plane:
Back to Arizona, towards

The flat tire, the accident.
The fire.

When I knew, I laid down
In the cool grass, smelling the dirt,

Feeling the warmth of the spring sun. The ashes
That were you, rose,

Still:

Pushed
By winds that keep the airplanes aloft:
Suspended in air, still, hanging.

Descending over Phoenix.

Remember when we watched them come in?

But now, I can’t remember
Leaving you, at the airport
In Rochester:

I mistook
Our mother stretching up to wave to you,
At the gate,

For me looking, seeing you there, myself