Living Writings of Black Women City, Poetry Slam, and African Oral Tradition

Abstract

From the diaspora, different African peoples were brought to Brazil, only to see their traditions threatened during slavery and European colonization. Orality was one of the main means of resistance and maintenance of Afro-Brazilian cultures during this period, gradually incorporating them into the Brazilian context, giving rise to what we know as Afro-Brazilian culture. Among samba, capoeira, terreiro houses, and other elements resulting from this cultural confluence, I believe that the poetry slam is also a reflection of this. Based on an understanding of African oral tradition and oralitura, I sought to weave the connections between these elements and the poetry slam practiced by Black women. Despite being a present-day, situated phenomenon, the slam is also a movement for transmitting knowledge steeped in ancestry. For Black women, the slam emerges as an urban quilombo where their bodies perform private and collective narratives, breaking a previously imposed silence.