TY - BOOK AU - Johnson,Javon TI - Killing Poetry: Blackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities SN - 9780813580029 AV - PS310.N4 J64 2017 U1 - 811.009/896073 23 PY - 2017///] CY - New Brunswick, NJ : PB - Rutgers University Press, KW - ART / Performance KW - American poetry KW - African American authors KW - History and criticism KW - 20th century KW - 21st century KW - Performance poetry KW - United States KW - Poetry slams KW - History KW - Poetry KW - Political aspects KW - Social aspects KW - SoCal KW - Southern California KW - black poet KW - black poetry KW - black KW - blackness KW - community KW - performance art KW - performance KW - poetry KW - power structure KW - slam poem KW - slam poetry KW - so-cal KW - word artist KW - POETRY / General KW - bisacsh N1 - 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; Issued also in print N2 - 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 UR - https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813580043?locatt=mode:legacy UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780813580043 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/cover/covers/9780813580043.jpg ER -