Neighbourhood is a poetic co-creation project in public secondary schools that attempts to open up the classroom as a space for writing from the margins of language. The project takes its name from the film of the same name (Barrio by Fernando León de Aranoa, 1998), as well as from the etymology of the word: barrí, ‘outside the walls’. This is also the nature of poems: a way of saying that escapes from the centre. Writing together from the neighbourhood (barrio) is writing from mud (barro): that which is not paved, which can be moulded with the hands. The proposal stems from two intuitions: firstly, that popular, youthful language, marked by origin and context, is legitimate poetic material; and secondly, that poetry can be a way of symbolically appropriating the world.
German Chocero is a poet, visual artist and teacher. Born in Granollers, he has always lived in the neighbouring area. When he was fifteen, his state secondary school organised an oral poetry workshop that sparked his interest. After spending a few years involved with poetry slam, he began working on various educational projects that involved taking poetry into the classroom. His research understands metaphor as a pedagogical resource that broadens definitions and horizons, taking a queer, class-based approach that questions subjectivity.
