{"id":729658,"date":"2026-04-15T12:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/729658\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T12:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:14:15","slug":"on-chicagos-poet-laureate-program-with-mayda-del-valle-and-avery-r-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/729658\/","title":{"rendered":"On Chicago’s Poet Laureate Program, with Mayda del Valle and avery r. young"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a> Mayda del Valle and avery r. young, Chicago\u2019s first two poets laureate\/Photo: Sulyiman Stokes, courtesy of avery r. young<\/p>\n

avery r. young starts talking about a picture of him from years ago and a poem he\u2019d written equally long ago. He laughs with recognition of this younger self. Mayda del Valle smiles along on her screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were babies,\u201d avery says of when they met. \u201cLike a long time. Ninety-five.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat long ago?\u201d Mayda asks with a wide-eyed look of equal recognition.<\/p>\n

During Mayda and avery\u2019s recollections, they share old-friend laughs, accountings of open mics and familiar haunts\u2014The Velvet Lounge, Ford City Mall, the Green Mill\u2014and postulations about poetry\u2019s place in Chicago. \u201cI was surrounded by arts organizing\u2014these amazing people of color who were doing really, really dope, progressive, way ahead of their time stuff,\u201d Mayda says, then turns to avery. \u201cOne of the first times that you got up on stage, I was at the Guild Complex.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019d started a program called the University of Hip-Hop,\u201d she continues, avery nodding. \u201cI was there at the infancy of that program. I was sixteen years old. We were the ones who were like, \u2018We want hip-hop programming here. We want graffiti classes, we want breakdance classes,\u2019 you know? And there were the mentors who sustained us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were mentored and influenced by Mama Gwendolyn Brooks, Mama Maria McCray,\u201d avery says, \u201cand then we went to build communities and teach and mentor. I think that\u2019s the beauty of this whole story; how these appointments come out of the woodwork.\u201d By \u201cappointments,\u201d avery is referring to the title he and Mayda share\u2013Chicago Poet Laureate\u2014as much as he is speaking about arts lineage.<\/p>\n

Poets laureate are ambassadors not just for poetry but for arts and culture in general and the people who create and consume them. Being a poet has, historically, meant gathering people; it hasn\u2019t always been a solitary endeavor, and to be an ambassador-poet with a structured role is an important social responsibility.<\/p>\n

Chicago\u2019s Poet Laureate program began in 2023 as a collaboration among the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and the Chicago Public Library (which shared its 150-year anniversary celebration with the laureateship\u2019s beginning), with support from the Poetry Foundation. \u201cWhen Chicago began building its Poet Laureate program,\u201d writes DCASE acting commissioner Kenya Merritt, \u201cthe goal was clear: to honor our city\u2019s singular literary legacy while building a model rooted in national best practices and local expertise.\u201d The Chicago program drew insight from programs in cities like Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles, as well as the State of Illinois and the Library of Congress. Input from an external review committee led to establishing a \u201cclear and separate budget for the laureate\u2019s workplan implementation, which is one of the elements that sets Chicago\u2019s program apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a> avery r. young performing at Music Under Glass\/Photo: Sulyiman Stokes<\/p>\n

The Chicago laureate is chosen by a review committee of community leaders in culture and the arts, given a $70,000 honorarium over two years for their poetry and presence, and tasked with developing a public program series. \u201cPoetry is everywhere, and that includes a place in the public square,\u201d writes Ydalmi Noriega, vice president of programs and engagement at the Poetry Foundation.<\/p>\n

In a package of minutes there is this We.
How beautiful.<\/p>\n

\u2014Gwendolyn Brooks, \u201cAn Aspect of Love, Alive in the Ice and Fire\u201d<\/p>\n

Gwendolyn Brooks\u2019 example is a model for the structure and selection process of Chicago\u2019s program. Brooks is both Chicago\u2019s patron poet and, with a thirty-two-year reign of love in Illinois, the \u201cQueen of all Laureates,\u201d according to today\u2019s Illinois State Poet Laureate Mark Turcotte. \u201cIf I consider the recent examples,\u201d Mark says, \u201cI\u2019m inspired to find ways to make poetry and words available to all Illinoisans.\u201d<\/p>\n

A laureate\u2019s work is specific to their place as well as their people\u2019s history and relationship to poetry, whether they\u2019re part of a state, city, nation, tribal nation or a street or bar (which Mark has heard tell of). \u201cFrom the rumblings I hear across the country, I think that being Illinois\u2019 Poet Laureate provides more room to breathe than, say, being a city laureate where things are more compressed,\u201d Mark says. \u201cHats off to our Chicago laureates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of our rich literary scene and tradition, it feels like the Chicago Poet Laureate needs to be a many-hatted polymath\u2014a writer, a performer, a teacher, a program leader, and an activist, at the very least. Mayda Del Valle, the second appointed laureate after avery r. young, performed at New York\u2019s Nuyorican Poets Cafe in 2001 and won the National Poetry Slam that same year. Among other accolades, Smithsonian Magazine named her one of America\u2019s Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences and O, The Oprah Magazine featured her in the first \u201cO Power List\u201d honoring women making marks in their fields.<\/p>\n

him yell\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0O. My. God
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0This is great. You\u2019re a natural.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 & i laf
when de light in front of me starts
Poppin \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 & den i laf dat i\u2019m laffin\u2014avery r. young, \u201cwhen de uncola photographer instruct(s) me to smile\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayda has a commanding, relentless performance style that you can\u2019t look away from. In her performance at \u201cLegends of Poetry,\u201d for instance, she blends English and Spanish with singing, litanies of the dead and of atrocity, and a fierce interrogation of colony, empire and tradition in a rhythmic polemic. Her poem in her body works like a contemporary and fully-watchable prayer, a spell, \u201ca hurricane that changes everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

avery, too, is a magnetic performer with a near-chaotic energy underpinning his\u00a0 style. His poem-film \u201cemmett (til de remix)\u201d invokes ancestors, fiercely explores empire and involves a lot of singing. Among other publications and performances, avery is the composer and librettist of \u201csafronia,\u201d a work that will premiere in April at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the author of \u201cneckbone,\u201d a collection of visual poetry.<\/p>\n

\u201cI use everything I can to make a poem,\u201d avery says of his work. Both avery and Mayda teach poetry as a tool for self-expression and arts organizing. Amidst the maddening \u201crush to eliminate every modifier\u201d by certain political interests, Avery says poetry is a tool for honesty. \u201cIf you want to know what really happened in 2025, you have to read the poems that people wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a> An evening celebrating Chicago Poet Laureate Mayda A. Del Valle in G.A.R. Hall in the Chicago Cultural Center; January 2026.<\/p>\n

These first Chicago Poets Laureate have brought poetry into the public sector, where it becomes more than art; it becomes an account and embodiment of life. Avery was not at all surprised that Mayda was selected, and after talking with them, neither am I. \u201cWe didn\u2019t write poems and stay home,\u201d avery says. \u201cWe were in the streets.\u201d They were in the city\u2019s poetry, which became a part of them. Mayda\u2019s got this title (and a budget) now, but, like Gwendolyn Brooks and those before them, she and avery were already among Chicago\u2019s poetry ambassadors. \u201cWe\u2019re a city where public institutions understand that writers and artists matter to the quality of life in the city,\u201d writes Chicago Public Library commissioner Chris Brown.<\/p>\n

Poets laureate have to connect community with poetry, and definitions of poetry run a wide range. A performer who can create a recording of their work is, in 2026, more likely to pull community together than one who\u2019s just a \u201cbook poet,\u201d as avery and Mayda consider them in discussion. By the same token, a poet who can mentor and teach in the community\u2014in neighborhoods more than in the academy\u2014can encourage people to see themselves in poetry. The second directive of the Chicago Poet Laureate, right after enhancing the appreciation of poetry, is raising awareness of poetry\u2019s civic importance.<\/p>\n

Importance can mean as many things as poetry means. Even silly poetry is important when you consider it a shared expression of lived experience\u2014a story of \u201cone day, this happened,\u201d as avery puts it. Mark Turcotte says that his experience of America as a Native person shapes what he prioritizes as a laureate. \u201cMy vulnerable beginnings make me different in everything I hope to accomplish,\u201d he says. \u201cI come from people who have often been denied opportunities to speak for themselves, and I\u2019m looking for ways to bring back into fashion the idea of expressing one\u2019s identity and history.\u201d<\/p>\n

The freedom to express one\u2019s experience is a right well-exercised through poetry. Poetry isn\u2019t something you have to learn in order to do it. Poetry is playing with words, and children often do it as well as adults. When we free ourselves and our imagination in language, our experience becomes expressible\u2014and expression changes the world. Poetry, as Mayda has put it before, \u201cimagines what\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes at the Hall Branch in Bronzeville, recent visits by U.S. Poets Laureate Ada Lim\u00f3n and Joy Harjo, to workshops and performances with avery r. young and moments like our Poetry Fest each April,\u201d Chicago poets have met readers in city library branches for generations, writes Chris Brown. \u201cIt makes sure poetry isn\u2019t abstract, but something people encounter where they live.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPoetry is way more accessible than people think it is.\u201d avery says this in the familiar sing-songy way: \u201cthe first poem that anybody ever learns is the alphabet.<\/p>\n

ABCD<\/strong>\/
EFG<\/strong>\/
HIJ<\/strong>K\/
LMNOP<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s taught in rhyme and meter and that\u2019s Shakespeare. That\u2019s poetry.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a child I danced
among the long, jangle legs of
the men, down
beside the whispering moccasin women,
in close circles
around the Old Ones,
who sat at the drum,
their heads tossed, backs arched
in ancient prayer.\u2014Mark Turcotte, \u201cFlies Buzzing\u201d\"A<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a> Mark Turcotte speaks in Springfield, Illinois, with Governor Pritzker laughing behind him.\/Photo courtesy of Mark Turcotte<\/p>\n

I\u2019d thought I was going to ask these laureates if it\u2019s hard to get people interested in poetry. That would have been the wrong phrasing. As Mark Turcotte says, the laureateship is a process of discovering what your people already know and care about. It feels more like avery and Mayda know that people care about poetry but they maybe don\u2019t think what they\u2019re doing is poetry, that what they\u2019re feeling and how they say it can be validated using that word. But poetry\u2019s not just for people who read books. \u201cThe poem also has to come out of your body to other bodies,\u201d avery says. Making the poem a text is only some of the work, and making it a book is only a thing for some poets. Some poets make poems out of graffiti, Mayda says. Once you see graffiti as poetry, you see that \u201cpoeffiti\u201d everywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what is a tag but an identity poem?\u201d avery pronounces.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s it,\u201d Mayda applauds, \u201cBreak it down. It\u2019s I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chicago Poet Laureate program is finding its footing and voice. \u201cThe City of Chicago as the managing entity is continuously challenged to think differently (and often times bigger) than we had originally,\u201d DCASE\u2019s Merritt says. The scale and infrastructure Chicago offers also create sweeping opportunities for the laureate. \u201cAt a time when stories are being challenged, histories are being questioned, and voices are too often marginalized, the spoken and written word matter more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Poet Laureate program reminds us that culture and creativity are essential to freedom of expression, civil liberties and democracy,\u201d writes Chicago Public Library\u2019s Brown. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve seen, again and again, is how both of the laureates connect with Chicagoans through performance, teaching and conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a> Newly announced Poet Laureate Mayda del Valle at the Chicago Cultural Center, January 2026\/Photo: Peyton Reich\/Office of the Mayor<\/p>\n

For Mayda and avery, having a foot in the civic door is one of the biggest boons the program offers, but it can\u2019t stop there. \u201cDCASE doesn\u2019t have a lit person to give access to the literary people,\u201d avery says. \u201cThat would be one of the biggest successes of the program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poetry Foundation\u2019s Noriega is proud of what\u2019s become of the Chicago laureateship in such a short time: \u201cThey have built a program that can serve as a model nationally for other jurisdictions that want to include poetry in their civic life.\u201d \u201cChicago\u2019s acclaimed poetry scene deserves proper and consistent recognition,\u201d Kenya Merrit writes, \u201cand with that support, artists are afforded opportunities to thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

I want to ask you if you ever wanted to leave.
If you can see yourself living somewhere other than here:
this city that put the wind in your lungs,
the ice in your stare.It\u2019s not that I hated home\u2014
it\u2019s just that my sense of destiny made me look
beyond the invisible border.\u2014Mayda del Valle, \u201cThis is How You Leave Home\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLineage is the word that keeps coming up for me in my practice,\u201d Mayda says. \u201cEverything has been done, but you add your own flavor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn high school,\u201d she continues, \u201cI used to work at Ford City Mall at Underground Wheels, which was owned by Dug Infinite, who\u2019s the person that taught Kanye how to make beats. The first book of poems I ever got was Sonia Sanchez, when I was like sixteen years old, from the Black-owned bookstore across the hall from the skate shop. What business did I have reading this book called<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve Been a Woman\u2019?\u2014I\u2019m not even a woman yet,\u201d she says with a glint in her eyes. \u201cBut then I go away to school in Massachusetts and somebody also gave me the anthology of poetry from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. I was obsessed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayda gets up and walks back to her shelves, hunting, as avery says, \u201cCome on, library.\u201d Mayda comes back pointing at a book\u2019s cover. \u201cEveryone thinks that\u2019s me on the cover,\u201d she says, laughing, \u201cto this day.\u201d Maybe it\u2019s the clothes, which she said she still wears sometimes. \u201cThere\u2019s something so public and embodied about the cover.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some ways, it sounds as if the cover poet might as well be Mayda. That poet represents a version of herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw these elders perform and learned this is what poetry\u2019s meant to be. Poetry is meant to be heard.\u201d The passion comes through in her voice. \u201cIt\u2019s meant to be embodied. It\u2019s meant to be experienced in community, in song, with music, with dance, with all of these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

This poetry, the poetry Mayda and Avery grew up with in Chicago and bring to life as laureates today, isn\u2019t \u201cbook\u201d poetry. There may be books, but it isn\u2019t that poetry. We\u2019ve all been to the academy readings done in academy voice, we agree. Mayda straightens in her seat with a wiggle and looks at her open-book hands, performing with a stilted tone: \u201cThey all have the cadence<\/p>\n

of the academic poet that goes<\/p>\n

like this.
And they stay
on the same cadence
for the 18 poems
of their newly
published
book.\u201d<\/p>\n

We laugh. The poetry we speak of isn\u2019t that. What I am hearing about is a poetry unbound by pages. This poetry beyond the book has to walk around with others. It breathes in experience and cries out life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayda del Valle and avery r. young, Chicago\u2019s first two poets laureate\/Photo: Sulyiman Stokes, courtesy of avery r.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":729659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-729658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116408672154105936","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}