Voices from the walls: a literary analysis of street poetry through graffiti

Abstract

Street poetry is increasingly present in the urban environment. It is on the walls, on the poles, in the trees, but often such writings are considered as marginal productions devoid of literary value. To oppose this conception, this research proposes to analyze the literary aspects included in the street poetry through graphite, as well as aims to awaken a new look for readers exploring and demonstrating the beauty, creativity, and artistic/cultural relevance of where poetry context is inserted. The work seeks to explain the ideological character of street writings seen as marginal productions made in the current scenario presenting their multiple meanings surrounded by a poetic face. As a resource for the poems’ analysis we turned to Russian Formalism’s theories since its studies indicates a recognition of literariness’ strategies towards the text, for example, the use of figures of speech. We show throughout these analysis that these selected texts, produced in graffiti and displayed in walls, are literary and provoque reflections and questions on the reader. We also used the theoretical contributions from Paz (2012), Lodi (2003), Compagnon (2014), Tezza (2003) and Samuel (2011) for this survey. The poetic material collected for the analysis was photographed in the walls of the Federal University of Piauí.