Susan Somers-Willett

From Slam to Def Poetry Jam: The Racial Encoding of Poetry’s Publics

Panel Abstract: This panel brings an international perspective to contemporary performance poetry, considering poetry slams, poetry collectives, and internet-based performance poetry across a range of local and global sites. Through ethnographic work and discursive analysis, panelists will discuss how contemporary performance poetry represents itself and is represented, the extent to which it calls forth counter-publics, and the cultural significance of doing poetry publically among local collectives. Frost’s paper examines the discursive frames through which performance poetry is presented and represented online (in recordings and descriptive text), by individuals and institutions, in order to assess the role of the Internet in creating a global cultural commodity from an intimate local form. Helen Gregory explores the tendency of some U.S. slam participants to present slam as a counter-public or counter-hegemonic movement and questions the extent to which the form achieves this stated aim. In counterpoint, Susan Somers-Willett argues that the open, democratic counter-publics formed by slams have been co-opted by official public culture in racially-encoded ways. Lastly, Jenifer Vernon draws on ethnographic work conducted in San Diego to demonstrate how the specific cultural codes practiced by local poetry crews—such as naming conventions and performance rules—communicate a working-class ethos and generate an important cultural space in opposition to official public culture. Each panelist approaches these issues from the hybrid perspective of performer and critic, and the presentations will therefore combine those performative modes.