Writing the Self: Slam Poetry, Youth Identity, and Critical Poetic Inquiry

The purpose of this study was to describe the slam poetry classroom space and its meaningfulness as a tool for the construction of the perceived and embodied identities of urban American middle school students. The aim of this article is to explain how critical poetic inquiry can participate in the activist tradition of amplifying the voices of the oppressed when exploring the slam poetry classroom space and co-creating its meaning with student-participants. This research questioned: How does the slam poetry space enable middle school students to break through social barriers? How does the slam poetry space engage middle school students in the process of identity construction? Themes that emerged from this study include that slam poetry class provided a place to negotiate prescribed identities and the slam poetry class was a location for youth to create ideal self-narratives. This research contributes a pedagogy that empowers teachers and students to engage in collaborative agency and change-making through dialogue via slam poetry and critical poetic inquiry. The organizing structure of this article uses poems authored by the researcher and subtitles to introduce each section.