Stovall, D. "Urban Poetics"

Subtitle: Poetry, Social Justice, and Critical Pedagogy in Education.

I read this last night, before I decided to make this blog, so my memory of this article might not be spot on. Overall, it wasn't that hot; not nearly as hot as the title, which I love. The article was sort of a case study of four poets/poetry educators, some who teach in schools, some in less formal settings. All of them (including the author) perform poetry and coach slam teams, but they also all put out criticism of the slam thing. It's not really a case study I guess; maybe more of an ethnography. It just describes each person's deal regarding poetry, expression, learning, etc. They all seem like cool people, perhapps very very serious people though; the kind you might stereotypically imagine populating a poetry reading. I found myself longing for humor. I mean, I love all the shit they're talking about, but like, does anybody remember laughter??

They talk a lot about using creativity and expression as ways of developing a critical eye toward one's experience of the world-- I would say that's where Freire/Crit Ped come in. But it's all a bit vague. Somewhat inspiring, but just not new. It felt very heavy on describing each poet and light on digging deep into greater implications on education. But there certainly was some. I mean, we're talking about people who value the phenomenological experience of the students, especially those marginalized by the mainstream American ed system, and so clearly, we are very against NCLB, etc.

Awakening the inner mind, something like that, through creative express, that seems to be the emphasis here. A great one indeed. It just felt a little light. Not sure why. I'm new at this.