Killing Poetry - 9780813580012

Killing PoetryBlackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities\nAuthor(s): Javon Johnson\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Rutgers University Press, United States\nImprint: Rutgers University Press\nISBN-13: 9780813580012, 978-0813580012\nSynopsis\nWinner of the 2019 Lilla A. Heston Award\n Co-winner of the 2018 Ethnography Divisions Best Book from the NCA\n\n 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.\n 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 s.