Ideas, language, action: The protest poetry of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter

The notion of poetry as protest is not new – Percy Bysshe Shelley famously advocated for radical social action in ‘The Masque Anarchy’ (1819), example, a response to the brutality Peterloo massacre. Far from making nothing happen, Audre Lorde notes that ‘poetry way we help give name nameless so it can be thought’; form ‘is luxury’ but ‘vital necessity’ which ideas, language, and might wrought (1985). Certainly, context #MeToo #BlackLivesMatter, has occupied central role expression trauma injustice, offering critical means through speak truth power, particularly margins, via non-traditional publishing platforms such Twitter Instagram. This article argues much Black Lives Matter activism operates two key intersecting ways: transgressive variation contemporary (anti-)elegy, virtual performance drawing upon network-building functions media. In both capacities, resists consolations closure demonstrate ongoing realities systemic racism sexism. Focussing on range poems enact resistance, this explores ‘boundary-breaking potential’ elegiac performances poetry, ‘possibilities more equitable what could take shape’ (Rutter et al., 2019, p. 24).