Mayda Alexandra del Valle

Mayda del Valle has been described by the Chicago Sun Times as having “a way with words. Sometimes they seem to flutter and roll off her lips. Other times they burst forth like a comet streaking across a nighttime sky.” A poet, performer, and interdisciplinary artist, Del Valle was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago. She is the author of A South Side Girl’s Guide to Love and Sex (Tia Chucha Press) and The University of Hip-Hop, winner of the 2016 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize from Northwestern University Press. 

Del Valle launched her career at the legendary Nuyorican Poets Cafe, where she became the 2001 Grand Slam Champion before going on to win the National Poetry Slam in the same year, becoming the youngest poet and the first Latine person to do so. She went on to appear on six episodes of the HBO series Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry, and was a contributing writer and original cast member of the Tony Award-winning Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway.

Her work has been featured in Urban Latino, Latina Magazine, Mass Appeal, The Source, and The New York Times. Smithsonian Magazine named her one of America’s Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences, and O, The Oprah Magazine featured her as one of 20 women in the first “O Power List,” which honored a group of visionary women making a mark in business, politics, and the arts. She has performed at venues worldwide, including a 2009 appearance at the White House by invitation of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

Del Valle holds a degree in studio art and brings a multi- and interdisciplinary approach to her art practice, often incorporating photography, video, music, and movement into her work. She is a 15-year student of Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba, the oldest living musical tradition from Puerto Rico, and is a dancer, vocalist, and composer with Las BomPleneras, the longest-standing all-women’s Bomba and Plena ensemble in the Puerto Rican diaspora.

A passionate arts educator, Del Valle has taught poetry in schools, colleges, and youth detention facilities and served as program director of Street Poets Inc. in Los Angeles. She is currently a poet-in-residence with the Chicago Poetry Center.

In 2024, she was awarded the Letras Boricuas Fellowship from the Flamboyan Arts Fund and the Mellon Foundation, and in 2025, she was named a Dark Matter Artist in Residence at Elastic Arts. She is developing a multi-media spoken word performance piece entitled Herencia, exploring the story of Puerto Rican migration to Chicago’s South Side.