Broadway star thrills with slam poetry

"This is not Poetry 101," Mayda Del Valle told her audience. "It's more like church, really."

An accomplished slam poet with two national poetry championships and four appearances on HBO, Del Valle had one request of her audience: forget everything they thought they knew about poetry. Sitting through a poetry slam should not be like sitting through an introductory English class.

Del Valle thrilled a small audience in the Student Union Theater on Wednesday as part of the Student Programming Board's Poetry Slam Finale, which also featured UB students competing from previous slams.

With a rapid-fire cadence accentuated by a voice that moved effortlessly between playful singsong and revolutionary forcefulness, Del Valle seemed to leave no thematic stone unturned during her hour-long performance.

After opening with "Descendancy," a powerful tirade against racial stereotypes and labels, the poet quickly switched gears with the love poem, "Seduce Me."

"Seduce me/ write me a poem," Del Valle repeated with increasing urgency throughout the piece. "That speaks of our timelessness/ remind me it was you I loved in a past life/ on some far away continent."

"Seduce Me" really connected with Monique Tabor, a freshman undecided major who went to the show.

"Her words are just so powerful and moving," Tabor said. "I really liked what she had to say about relationships."

Other highlights of the performance included "Urban Symphony," which spoke to the students in the audience by pondering the meaning of "home" from a far away college, and "Tongue Tactics," a diatribe in defense of the poet's western Chicago brand of "Spanglish."

Also on the program were five UB student poets, including three winners from previous poetry slams: Crystal Cunningham, Marquis Woolford, and Linda Jules.

Cunningham, a communication major, got some laughs and knowing head nods for her "Shopoholic," which included the line, "that cardigan is calling/ tell him I'm not home."

Woolford, an English major, tapped into his childhood in his poem, "Innocence/ Reminiscence."

Jules provided the highlight of the student performances with "Music," a heartfelt examination of an aspiring musician whose life is cut short by senseless violence. The computer engineering major talked about the "distortion of a picture once set in focus," contrasting an innocent and profound love for music with the sudden 15 shots that ended this love.

While each student poet reached out to the audience in his or her own way, the main attraction was Del Valle, whose polished and passionate performance gave the students something to aspire to.

"This is all stuff that's about me, about my life, so getting into it, getting excited comes natural," said Del Valle, who has also won a Tony Award. "But I practice, go over these a thousand times because I don't want to put myself out on Broadway, where you've paid $60 dollars for your seats, and not know my sh*t."

Del Valle said she started on Broadway in 2002 as a part of Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam.

"I moved to New York after college, started going to poetry slams, started winning," Mayda said. "I won a competition at the Nuyorican Poets Caf?(c), won the National Poetry Slam in 2001, where I was the youngest poet to win and the first Latino person to win, then I was asked to perform on HBO by Russell Simmons. I made the cut the first season, and next thing I know they're turning the show into a stage production and I'm a part of the original cast."

The Broadway production of "Def Poetry Jam" wound up garnering a Tony award for Del Valle and the rest of the cast, while the television version of "Def Poetry" is in its fourth season on HBO.

Del Valle is currently on a college tour that began in February, and said she can't believe she's been able to make a living doing what she loves.

"It's awesome. I've been doing this professionally for four years, making a living writing and performing poetry," Del Valle said. "I'm certainly not complaining."