Content area
Full Text
The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry: Race, Identity, and the Performance of Popular Verse in America AUTHOR: SUSAN B. A. SOMERS-WILLETT UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS, 2009 PRICE: $22.95 ISBN: 978-0-472-05059-8
Susan Somers-Willett writes a compelling and intriguing examination of Slam Poetry. She chronicles its beginnings, originating in a white working-class neighborhood in 1980s Chicago, to the genres current deployment in movies from Hollywood and the Broadway stage in New York. Through her examination of the genre, Somers-Willett manages to take the reader through the fairly complicated and nuanced life of a Slam Poet and Slam poetry. In addition, she masterfully dissects how this genre informs our understanding of racial and ethnic identity politics in America.
Slam Poetry is competitive performance poetry. Poets are expected to perform short three to five minute poems with authence members ultimately determining the winner by scoring factors such as quality of performance, content, and originality. Furthermore it is interactive, with poets expecting, sometimes...