The Obamas hosted a program of jazz and poetry at the White House last Tuesday, “We’re here to celebrate the power of words and music to help us appreciate beauty and also to understand pain,” Obama told the audience.

“An Evening of Poetry, Music and the Spoken Word” — held in the East Room — featured appearances by poet Joshua Brandon Bennett, writer-poet-actress Mayda del Valle, author Michael Chabon, pianist Eric Lewis and actor James Earl Jones, among others.

The 45-minute presentation of “Poetry, Music and Spoken Word” that was hosted by President and Michelle Obama — on the same day that the Broadway producer Rocco Landesman was nominated as the next chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts — certainly looked as if it was meant to signal a new White House taste in the performing arts.

The president began the program by introducing “the star of the show, somebody who brings a lot of poetry to my own life” and handed it over to Mrs. Obama, perhaps signaling that the arts will be a part of her personal portfolio. She said she had wanted to hear poetry and spoken word in the White House from Day 1.

Spoken word dominated the program, with poetry performances by Mayda del Valle, Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio and Joshua Bennett.

Left: Esperanza Spalding

Other performers included playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the Tony Award-winning musical “In the Heights,” with what he said was the first song in a new musical about Hamilton; the jazz singer and bassist Esperanza Spalding, whose rendition of Lauryn Hill’s “Tell Him” was a high point; and James Earl Jones, hammy as ever, delivering Othello’s address to the Venetian senators.

Eric Lewis @ the White House – Mr. Brightside

The Poetry Slam

The poetry slam was performed by three relative unknowns: Mayda Del Valle, a native of Obama’s hometown of Chicago; and two finalists in HBO’s Brave New Voices Spoken Word Poetry competition: Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio and Joshua Brandon Bennett (HBO will be rebroadcasting the event).

Chicago native Mayda del Calle read a poem about a grandmother she never got the chance to meet:

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.

It was a poem that Barack Obama, a product of “Chicago ice” and “island breezes,” and who lost his grandmother just before the election, no doubt could relate to.

One could, in fact, find ties to Obama in all three of the young poets. Jamaica Osorio is Hawaiian, and her poem “1893” — featured on HBO’s Brave New Voices website — is a passionate plea for the preservation of Hawaiian culture.

But I’ll show you my pride…
Who my loyalty is tied to,
what nation my heart sings to
I’ll sing for you
I’ll chant continuously to show you that I am Hawaiian
I will stand, fight and chant and never be compliant
because the second I start worshipping the red, white and blue
pledging allegiance to a nation that turned out eyes red
people white, and eyes blue
is the second I know that the fight is through

Josh Bennett, finally, is an African American attending the “elitist” (in election-speak) University of Pennsylvania. Here’s an excerpt from his poem “Carbon Copy”:

My father is no hero
He’s a postal worker
A Vietnam vet with a jim crow education
Six children and enough regrets to fill a casket with
Sometimes sleeps with his eyes open
As is he’s looking for 3AM redemption from whatever
Insomniac angels may still be watching over him
And with all of his flaws, I still love him.

deletereply sassyangelac wrote on May 18, ’09 Wow, I think I’d rather have tickets to that than the inauguration!

editdeletereply lauritasita wrote on May 18, ’09 Yeah ! Me too, Sassy !

deletereply instrumentalpavilion wrote on May 18, ’09 I wish I could have seen all this in person. Thanks for sharing…I will see what else I can turn up.

deletereply instrumentalpavilion wrote on May 18, ’09 I heard the event was taped for HBO…not sure when it is going to air.

deletereply starfishred wrote on May 19, ’09 WOW THIS IS JUST GREAT THANKS

editdeletereply lauritasita wrote on May 19, ’09, edited on May 19, ’09 Thanks, guys. I will keep looking for videos of the poetry. In the meantime, I have found some excerpts from some of the poetry from Yahoo.

deletereply catfishred wrote on May 19, ’09 Cool. Long live our poets! And the NEA has been sorely lacking in attention and funding for some time now. But I hope it’s not going to be a matter of skin colour for the Obama’s. That would be short-sighted, indeed.

deletereply caffeinatedjo wrote on May 19, ’09 Man, what an event! Had Bush still been in office, the poems would have probably been odes to oil wells. I think it’s great our President and First Lady are embracing the arts.

editdeletereply lauritasita wrote on May 19, ’09 caffeinatedjo said Had Bush still been in office, the poems would have probably been odes to oil wells. LOL!!! Yeah, I agree ! I wish I could have been there !

deletereply sanssouciblogs wrote on May 19, ’09 Very cool. I love that the Obamas are so connected to the people and bring out the best in so many. No one is too small. It’s wonderful, the people have regained their voices.

deletereply bostonsdandd wrote on May 20, ’09 *Sigh* I wish I had been there too! I just experience this would have been so awesome. Thanks for sharing it with us!

editdeletereply lauritasita wrote on May 20, ’09 Yes, it sounds like they had a great evening, and I wish I could’ve been there, too.

deletereply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 22, ’09 wow…………..sounds like they had quite a party……………its amazing to know that sort of thing is going on in the White House, and long may it continue.