Speak About It, Be About It: Spoken-Word Poetry Communities and Transformative Social Justice

Abstract

“Spoken-word poetry” and the knowledge we can gain from the poets who perform it are integral to the successful recovery of members of oppressed communities. Also known as “performance poetry,” these powerful testimonials often mirror oral traditions, such as speaking circles from the African diaspora, Indigenous oral traditions in the Americas, and the spoken-word poetic communities of color and marginalized peoples. Poets within the spoken-word poetry communities of San Diego, California, who have been oppressed by interpersonal and state violence, mass incarceration, militarized policing, poverty, racism, sexism, the War on Drugs, and other systemic inequalities, learn from and support one another. This article views spoken-word poetry as public testimonials that may add to transformative social justice models for structurally-oppressed communities. It seeks to understand critical criminological approaches and analysis that add to the growing scholarship centering structurally-oppressed communities without pathologizing them in order to inform programming, policy and funding toward transformative social justice initiatives focused on healing communities and their members.