Mayda del Valle

Mayda del Valle was born in 1978 in Chicago and grew up on the South Side. She received a BA from Williams College and holds a degree in studio art, bringing a multi- and interdisciplinary approach to her art practice, incorporating photography, video, music, and movement into her work. 

Del Valle is the author of A South Side Girl’s Guide to Love and Sex (Tia Chucha Press, 2017) and The University of Hip Hop (Northwestern University Press, 2017), winner of the 2016 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. 

Del Valle began her career at Nuyorican Poets Café, where she was the 2001 Grand Slam Champion, and went on to become the National Poetry Slam Champion in the same year—the youngest and first Latin person to do so. She went on to appear in 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. Del Valle’s work has also been featured in numerous publications, including the New York Times. She has performed at venues worldwide, including a 2009 appearance at the White House by invitation of President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

In 2024, Del Valle was awarded the Letras Boricuas Fellowship from the Flamboyan Arts Fund and the Mellon Foundation, and in 2025, received a Dark Matter Residency from Elastic Arts Foundation in Chicago. 

Del Valle has taught poetry in schools, colleges, and youth detention facilities, and served as program director of Street Poets in Los Angeles. She is currently the poet in residence at The Chicago Poetry Center. In 2026, Del Valle was appointed as the second poet laureate of Chicago for a two-year term. She is currently developing a multimedia spoken word performance piece titled Herencia, exploring the story of Puerto Rican migration to Chicago’s South Side.