Creating a Critical Pedagogy of Place with Marginalized Youth in Barrio Logan
Poem as Testimonio
Poetry, as a form of testimonio, was a vehicle for communicating narratives of resistance and untold stories within the fugitive space of this practice. The potentials for new stories to emerge lay within the poems. In the classroom this was done by enabling time and space for students to write, perform and discuss poetry and at Liminal Gallery it was accomplished through open mic events and art exhibitions. The following poems by Miguel, as artefacts of this practice, were shared with the community in the form of spoken word to initiate conversations and contribute to the critical place based pedagogy of this practice.
figure 8: Poetry and excerpts from Diego
The following excerpt, from a conversation with Diego, was hung on the wall alongside his poems during a student exhibition at Liminal Galley.
As a form of collaborative curation, Diego chose this excerpt to be part of the exhibition.
“I use poetry when I am feeling down or when I am about to do something stupid. It helps me think better. When you read my poems some of it might relate to you, or not, but that’s up to you. For example people can judge you by the way you dress by the way you look, the way you speak but it doesn’t matter because what they call you or what they name you is only going to make you stronger and it makes them look weaker…Poetry influenced me a lot because there are a lot of people out there that are afraid to say what they mean, so that’s why I do poetry because people that read my poems, they can relate and it might help them to start doing poetry too and they might write stuff that relates to other people too” (Diego 12 May, 2016).