Document Type
Article
Abstract
Through the process of creating—specifically of shaping new worlds of possibility through poetry and the performance of it—the arts may offer gaps in the punishment of incarceration and attempt the reclamation or claiming of individual expression. But what are the limits of artistic expression in a highly monitored and surveilled location? This reflective essay explores a performance of slam poetry by ten inmates inside Arizona's Eyman State Prison for an audience of twenty-five prisoners. Using Keoni Watson’s winning poem as a frame, Rocchio questions the reported impacts of the slam and the larger culpability of arts-in-corrections in simultaneously supporting and undermining the existing carceral and state power structures in control over the bodies and souls of prisoners.
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Recommended Citation
Rocchio, Rivka
(2017)
"Poetry Slammin’ in the Slammer: Questioning the Limits of Arts-in-Corrections,"
Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal: Vol. 2, Article 4.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ptoj/vol2/iss1/4
Included in
Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Education Commons, Theatre and Performance Studies Commons
