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Killing Poetry : Blackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities / Javon Johnson.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, [2017]Copyright date: ©2017Description: 1 online resource (170 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780813580029
  • 9780813580043
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 811.009/896073 23
LOC classification:
  • PS310.N4 J64 2017
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Let the Slam Begin: History, Method, and Beyond -- 2. "This DPL, Come On!": Black Manhood in the Los Angeles Slam and Spoken Word Scene -- 3. SlamMasters: Toward Creative and Transformative Justice -- 4. Button Up: Viral Poetry and Rethinking the Archives -- 5. Conclusion: "That Is the Slam, Everybody" -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- References -- Index
Summary: In recent decades, poetry slams and the spoken word artists who compete in them have sparked a resurgent fascination with the world of poetry. However, there is little critical dialogue that fully engages with the cultural complexities present in slam and spoken word poetry communities, as well as their ramifications. In Killing Poetry, renowned slam poet, Javon Johnson unpacks some of the complicated issues that comprise performance poetry spaces. He argues that the truly radical potential in slam and spoken word communities lies not just in proving literary worth, speaking back to power, or even in altering power structures, but instead in imagining and working towards altogether different social relationships. His illuminating ethnography provides a critical history of the slam, contextualizes contemporary black poets in larger black literary traditions, and does away with the notion that poetry slams are inherently radically democratic and utopic. Killing Poetry-at times autobiographical, poetic, and journalistic-analyzes the masculine posturing in the Southern California community in particular, the sexual assault in the national community, and the ways in which related social media inadvertently replicate many of the same white supremacist, patriarchal, and mainstream logics so many spoken word poets seem to be working against. Throughout, Johnson examines the promises and problems within slam and spoken word, while illustrating how community is made and remade in hopes of eventually creating the radical spaces so many of these poets strive to achieve.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780813580043

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Let the Slam Begin: History, Method, and Beyond -- 2. "This DPL, Come On!": Black Manhood in the Los Angeles Slam and Spoken Word Scene -- 3. SlamMasters: Toward Creative and Transformative Justice -- 4. Button Up: Viral Poetry and Rethinking the Archives -- 5. Conclusion: "That Is the Slam, Everybody" -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- References -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

In recent decades, poetry slams and the spoken word artists who compete in them have sparked a resurgent fascination with the world of poetry. However, there is little critical dialogue that fully engages with the cultural complexities present in slam and spoken word poetry communities, as well as their ramifications. In Killing Poetry, renowned slam poet, Javon Johnson unpacks some of the complicated issues that comprise performance poetry spaces. He argues that the truly radical potential in slam and spoken word communities lies not just in proving literary worth, speaking back to power, or even in altering power structures, but instead in imagining and working towards altogether different social relationships. His illuminating ethnography provides a critical history of the slam, contextualizes contemporary black poets in larger black literary traditions, and does away with the notion that poetry slams are inherently radically democratic and utopic. Killing Poetry-at times autobiographical, poetic, and journalistic-analyzes the masculine posturing in the Southern California community in particular, the sexual assault in the national community, and the ways in which related social media inadvertently replicate many of the same white supremacist, patriarchal, and mainstream logics so many spoken word poets seem to be working against. Throughout, Johnson examines the promises and problems within slam and spoken word, while illustrating how community is made and remade in hopes of eventually creating the radical spaces so many of these poets strive to achieve.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 07. Jan 2021)