The Strain, the Skeptic, and the Slam: Poetry as a Pathway to Mental Health Recovery

Presentation given at the Curriculum Studies Summer Collaborative.

Higher education is so far behind other careers on compensation, support, and satisfaction, with the added pressures of the pandemic, the pull of those base quality-of-life measures is strong enough to break away from academia as a vocation. Overwhelmingly, more professors report that the pandemic makes their jobs more stressful and demanding (Flaherty, 2020). As faculty, many are struggling with adjusting to teaching online, new modalities of engaging students, and zoom fatigue. Additionally, during this time of pivotal social unrest, political instability and endless childcare and family related concerns there is a staggering strain effecting job performance that has implications of large-scale proportion. In finding some solace from technology burnout, I found building a community of poets has provided brief periods of respite during the pandemic. This paper will describe how poetry slam worked as a serum to move students and faculty toward healing during turbulent times. Poetry slam is story telling that illustrates vulnerability and power at the same time. Telling your story through slam can provide a space for healing. Storytelling to a receptive audience of listeners is even more effectual as it soothes both the poet and the listener. There is intense pain in hiding and spoken word poetry is about discovery and creatively exposing events and emotions that are in plain sight, yet we are too intimidated to call them out. The art of storytelling also provides shelter as we seek to further process how to heal, connect, reimagine, and rebuild our creative spaces.