He and the team attended the 1997 National Poetry Slam in Connecticut, and filmed a majority of the competition. In 1998, Yamaguchi attended the National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas to film the competition, documenting finals night perfect tens from Jason Edwards, Jason Carney and Gno, and the spoken-word breakthrough of that year's national champion Reggie Gibson. Each year from 2001 to 2005, Yamaguchi took the Chico Speaks Out National youth slam team to the Brave New Voices festival. They won the Best of Show National Spirit Award in 2003, performing on the finals stage, and placed third in the nation in 2005. Since 2001, Yamaguchi has produced live slam poetry DVDs from a number of national events, including the National Poetry Slams in Seattle in 2001, Chicago in 2003, St. Louis in 2004, Albuquerque in 2005, and Austin in 2006 (where he was also a host), and the Individual World Poetry Slams in Greenville, South Carolina in 2004, Worcester, Massachusetts in 2005, and Charlotte, North Carolina in 2006. The 2004 slam in Greenville saw him win the World Haiku head-to-head championship, which he also filmed. In 2007, Yamaguchi hosted the first ever Haiku head to head matches at the Haiku Society of America Conference in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He also documented the conference and began production on a film about Haiku in English, entitled Haiku. He hosted the national Head to head Haiku bout in Austin, Texas to the sold out audience of 300 plus at the famous blues club Antone's. He formed the first American Haiku Battle Duo with Adam 'Henzbo' Henze. In 2008, Yamaguchi worked on two graphic Haiku novels: Orugen and TheAmericanBuddhas. He planned to film the first Women of the World Poetry Slam in March 2008 in Detroit. His film Haiku was due for release in the spring of 2008. Most recently Tazuo is creating magic on the Clubhouse app as the director of the very first ever social media offering of The FunkyiPuppets. He and his band of beloved misfits (said in the most beautiful way possible) are doing the M.A.T.S.U, Making Art Together Supporting Unity. References 1966 births Living people People from Tokyo English-language haiku poets English-language writers from Japan American poets American writers of Japanese descent 21st-century American poets American poets of Asian descent