GOODBYE GRAND POETRY SLAM: ISSUES OF GENDER, RACE AND DECOLONIALITY IN POETRY-SLAMS FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Abstract

This paper aims to problematize the participation of poets in the Grand Poetry Slam, a world championship that takes place annually in Paris. Specifically, it aims to discuss issues of gender, race, and decoloniality in the poetic performances of Bell Puã, the Brazilian slammer representing the 2018 event, contrasting them with other performances by European, white, cis, colonizing poets from the Global North. We also seek to defend artivism and combarte as movements that involve Brazilian slam events and, by extension, those in Latin America and the Global South. This ethnographic research was carried out on-site at the Grand Poetry Slam in France, in 2018 and 2023, and at the World Poetry Slam Championship (WPSC), held at the Literary Festival of the Peripheries (FLUP), in Rio de Janeiro, in 2023. The poetic texts performed here and there reveal aesthetic and, above all, ethical differences in the themes addressed, which are due to the historical, cultural, and (geo) political factors that separate the Global North and South.