Mayda Del Valle

White House poetry: Chicago poet Mayda del Valle visits the White House
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama invite del Valle and eight other performers for an evening to celebrate poetry, music and the spoken word

By John McCormick | Tribune reporter
May 13, 2009

When Chicago native Mayda del Valle walked into the ornate East Room of the White House on Tuesday evening to recite a newly written poem about a grandmother she barely knew, it took all of her professionalism to disguise her nervousness.

A nationally known poet and performer, del Valle has appeared on high-profile stages before, from Broadway to the University of Southern California to HBO. Still, asked about the condition of her nerves, del Valle said this particular gig had gotten to her.

"Are you kidding me? I can't keep my hands from shaking," she said. "I hardly slept at all last night."

While a poetry jam that mixed smooth jazz with groovy verse may seem more fitting for a coffeehouse than the White House, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama invited del Valle and eight other performers for an evening to celebrate poetry, music and the spoken word.

The gathering was not a competition, so it was not technically a poetry slam, a phrase often credited to Chicago poet Marc Smith.

"We're here tonight not just to enjoy the works of these artists, but also to highlight the importance of the arts in our life and in our nation," said Obama, who wrote some poetry for a literary magazine produced by Occidental College in California where he studied in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Michelle Obama instructed the audience to "have fun" and "be loose." She said she wants the White House to be "a place where all voices can be heard."

As the Obamas seek to create their own style in the White House, the event evoked the kind of cultural evening the Kennedys used to host. But the new First Couple seem to be working toward an urban cool more accessible than the Kennedys, more multicultural than the Clintons and livelier than the Bushes.

For their first formal White House dinner, for example, they had R&B band Earth, Wind and Fire as the entertainment. Stevie Wonder, an Obama favorite, was also honored with a White House concert.

Other performers Tuesday included actor James Earl Jones, writers Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman (husband and wife), jazz bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding, pianist Eric Lewis and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda. The event, streamed live on the Internet, also featured two finalists for an HBO youth poetry competition.

The appearance by del Valle, 30, had been in the works since late March, when she said she was asked by Mark Eleveld, a poetry advocate and English teacher at Joliet West High School, if she might be interested.

Then, about two weeks ago, the White House called to ask her if she was available. "I jumped up on the couch and said yes," she said.

Del Valle's parents still live in Chicago, although she now calls Los Angeles home. She attended Maria High School on Chicago's Southwest Side before attending Williams College in Massachusetts.

It was as a high school student that del Valle found poetry through an organization called the Southwest Youth Collaborative. She is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents, a retired forklift operator and homemaker, and has two siblings who are Chicago police officers.

Del Valle, a petite woman with a powerful voice, said the 492-word poem she read at the White House, "a faith like yours," was written during the last week. It was about her grandmother, a woman named Segunda, who died in Puerto Rico when del Valle was a small child.

One part of the poem might have resonated with the president, who has ties to both Chicago and a more exotic locale, Hawaii:

some say faith is for the weak or small minded

but I search for your faith everywhere

I need it to reassemble myself whole from these shards of Chicago ice and island breezes so I can rewrite the songs of your silence and pain



Del Valle said she read Obama's first book and likes his writing style.

"It's kind of cool that the president is a writer," she said. "We share a common goal for storytelling.








Here's the complete poem from the White House Reading:

a faith like yours

grandmother our common thread began in my mama's womb
spun my fetus like a record in her cipher
sampled your stubborn and mixed in her fathers posture
our connection is full circle
abuela you bearer of children
you seer of spirits
you are truly miraculous
fingers grasping the whispers of litanies and white tablecloths
your melody is captured
in the spilled candle wax of my skin

my tongue a broken needle scratching through the grooves of lost wisdom
trying to find a faith that beats like yours
what secrets do your bones hold?
what pattern does your dust settle into when I beat these drums
inside my ribs?
what color was the soil in your grandmothers garden?

grandma how did you pray?
did you store the memory of your creator in strands of hair tucked into scented soap boxes
or placentas buried under avocado trees?
what reservoir did you pull your faith from?
was it anything like this gumbo
this sancocho
this remix of rituals and chants sampled from muscle memory and spirits that visit my dreams that I struggle to stir into discipline
to honor the unseen
with these shells this sage these rudraksha and rosary beads
these white candles crystals statues
this sweet water honey rum and sweetgrass

abuela how did you pray before someone told you who your god should be?
how did you hold the earth in your hands and thank her for its fecundity
did the sea wash away your sadness
how did you humble yourself before your architect
did your lower yourself to your knees
or rock to the rhythm of ocean waves like I do
grandma how did you pray?

some say faith is for the weak or small minded
but I search for your faith everywhere
I need it to reassemble myself whole from these shards of Chicago ice and island breezes so I can rewrite the songs of your silence and pain
your lonely fists broken toothed smile and burdens
into a medley of mantras

wish you could have shown me it's shape
but I know it is in every sacred breath
in the shadows of trees you visit me in
in the flicker of flames I stare into searching for what's divine
and I know my body is the instrument my maker uses to rearrange the broken chords of your history into a new symphony for my unborn children's feet to dance to
and I see you grandmother
gathering with your sistren
to chant the names of the living and the dead and remind us all
that whether gathered in marble temples
around midnight fires or block party speakers
we have always raised our hands to the sky wanting to touch the invisible force that holds these cells together into a fragile mass
we be sound to beat to bass to bone to flesh
we be sound to beat to bass to bone to flesh
we are truly miraculous

© Mayda del Valle 2009