Mapping Kenya’s Spoken Word Poetry It was a breezy Saturday evening in Nairobi, and the small amphitheater at the Alliance Francaise Gardens was packed. The anticipation from the audience was…
Contemporaries Essays
Poetry Slam in Brazil Over the Last Two Decades: Challenges and Transformations
Introduction Poetry slam has existed in Brazil for 17 years and has undergone changes since its inception, strengthening itself as a spoken word poetry competition that also serves as a…
Poetry Videos and Spoken Word Poetry in Ireland
Spoken word poetry in Ireland has been flourishing since the late 2000s, coinciding with huge social, political, and economic shifts, from the 2008 recession to the referenda on marriage equality…
Austria’s Spoken Word Scene, or My Home Sweet Home
1Where are you from?ViennaWell yes, but where are you really from?ViennaVerlängte and “Oida, oida””Küss die Hand” and “In a Krautfassl ghörst damitsd’ weißt was sauer ist”,the Gürtel the Ring and…
Stages of Belonging: How Spoken Word Shapes Birmingham’s Cultural Landscape
Birmingham has produced some of the United Kingdom’s most influential performance poets, and its spoken word scene remains vibrant and evolving. The city’s tradition of spoken word is shaped by…
Sounding Home: Notes Before Registers
“Home is a mythic place of desire in the diasporic imagination.”1 “‘Home’ can be made and experienced through particular acoustic environments.”2 “If one is going to understand ‘home’, it has…
Poetry as Civic Transformation
Introduction Poetry often seeks to disrupt the status quo, resist oppressive hegemonic narratives, and counter inequalities and injustices. Arguably, spoken word poetry and participation in poetry slams have the potential…
“Learning is a Place Where Paradise can be Created”: Poetry in Indian Classrooms
I first met Jigyasa Labroo in 2016 at the National Youth Poetry Slam in Bengaluru. She was shepherding a group of twelve children, who snaked in and out of the…
Cartography of Care: On Mentorship and “Post” Pandemic Poetics
Arrivals I am writing this on a July afternoon in a Las Vegas coffee shop, windows and doors closed to the dry neon hum. I imagine that somewhere on the Strip…
Introducing Exit Page: The Gen-X-Y-Z of Global Spoken Word Poetry
We all know of it, and we all have engaged with it, whether knowingly or begrudgingly, in open mics or while doomscrolling on social media. Traditional poetry critics call it…