Spoken Resistance: Slam Poetry Performance as a Diasporic Response to Discursive Violence

This project foregrounds the work and perspectives of spoken word poets of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent in connection to the NYC slam poetry scene. I trace the parallel racialization of MENA diaspora communities in the US and the development of slam poetry as a space for raising “othered” voices. Through ethnographic analysis, I consider slam poetry as a site of intersectional struggle, arguing that the engagement of MENA diaspora poets with this scene reveals the ways in which poetry both constitutes resistance to discursive violence through representation and works to mobilize audiences against tangible structures of violence