Slam resistência: Poetry, citizenship and insurgence

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the interconnections between poetry, citizenship and insurgence in Slam Resistência, a poetry slam that, since 2014, occurs monthly in Praça Roosevelt, a square in the center of the city of São Paulo. The article starts by mapping the origins of slam poetry and its arrival in São Paulo. It also discusses the ways in which slam poetry transforms the relationship between public, poet and poetry, redefining these terms. We argue that, by mixing oral, visual and written elements, slam poetry blurs the limits between the public and the private, the personal and the political. In Slam Resistência, the practice of insurgent citizenship happens in the center of the polis, taking up the square, occupying and resignifying public space.