Def Poetry Jam on Broadway is a poetic outpouring of ethnic frustration and rage -- the pain of the poor. The darker people (black, Latin, Asian, Arabic and various mixtures) and their working-class neighbor express their inner turbulence and anger -- for people in high-priced Broadway seats. It's made up of very inventive poems of protest, life, love, all parallel to or tangential from the main stream, performed by their creators, including a teeny Puerto Rican woman (Mayda Del Valle) who is very heavy and a big heavy guy (Poetri) who is the lightness in the show. A pretty Jamaican lesbian, Staceyann Chin, strongly throws out her POV, and the one white guy, Steve Coleman, presents a working-class insight and irony.
These people are all poetry champs from different parts of the U.S., and they do indeed belong on Broadway, each in his or her own way expressing thoughts and feelings of our times, the drama of life today, with the rhythm of the streets, the bounce of today: the hip of the hop and the hop of the hip.
