Killing Poetry: Blackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities

Winner of the 2019 Lilla A. Heston Award
Co-winner of the 2018 Ethnography Division’s Best Book from the NCA

In recent decades, poetry slams and the spoken word artists who compete in them have sparked a resurgent fascination with the world of poetry. However, there is little critical dialogue that fully engages with the cultural complexities present in slam and spoken word poetry communities, as well as their ramifications.

In Killing Poetry, renowned slam poet, Javon Johnson unpacks som...