Critical Lattice: The Coalitional Practices and Potentialities of the Tucson Youth Poetry Slam

Abstract

In this dissertation, I use ethnographic observations, interviews, personal narrative, and analysis of youth slam poetry in conversation with theories of identification to demonstrate how members of the Tucson Youth Poetry Slam (TYPS) perform, inhabit, and develop a consciousness indicative of coalition and critical inquiry. TYPS poets demonstrate evidence of what I propose as critical latticework, an image and heuristic that brings together identificatory screen-work with rhizomatic and intersectional perspectives on growth and development. Through my analyses of poetry, interviews, and the activities of this youth slam community, I aim to illustrate the value of critical latticework as a perspective that can contribute to altering our perceptions of youth as developing in one direction, with one sense of healthy progression to adulthood. A critical lattice is another way of perceiving the activities of identification that take place in in-between-and-through-spaces, as well as the potential activism and labor occurring in those spaces, which act as more than screens but spaces of growth and significant chaos. I argue that an understanding of critical latticework is transferrable to writing classrooms, offering a practical image with which students of writing can imagine and move with fluidity to generate meaningful discourse and expand their perspectives on identity and writing.