Alvin Lau, a performance poet armed with a B.A. in poetry from Columbia College Chicago and a love of hip hop, is sure to pop-lock his way into your heart with an earnest energy to match his moves.
If, as Lau describes it, “poetry slam is an Olympic-style literary competition,” then he is by far one of this year’s gold medal favorites.
A 24-year-old Chinese-American, Lau began as something of a poetic prodigy. When he joined Chicago’s first Youth Slam Team in 2001, he had never even written a poem before. The team went to Youth Nationals for the first time in 2002 and faced the defending champions, Ann Arbor.
“They all looked at us like there was no way Chicago was going to win, and it seemed like other people had defined ideas of what slam was and we had no idea,” Lau remembered.
Yet Chicago ended up winning in a landslide. Since then, Lau has only found more success; he was named Amnesty International’s Poet of Conscience in 2007 and has come in 7th or better at the annual National Poetry Slam for the last four years, something no other poet has ever achieved.
He attributes his success to intentionally ignoring the competition.
“Lately, I’ve been undefeated in money tournaments and I think the best thing for [my writing] is not writing for the competition,” Lau said. “That’s something I’ve learned from [a fellow poet]; he doesn’t [care] if he wins or loses and that makes his work much more honest and beautiful.”
Describing himself as “rambunctious, honest and ambitious,” Lau’s poetry is an accurate reflection of his personality. In his uniquely rhythmic yet narrative style, Lau’s work addresses everything from gay marriage to Tiger Woods, often focusing on Asian issues.
“On the one hand, I feel like it’s my duty to give a cultural perspective, on the other hand, I don’t want to be [perceived as] ethnocentric,” Lau said. “I always want to be known as a poet first and an Asian second.”
According to Lau, performance poetry can range “from famous rappers like Talib Kweli and Mos Def to people who have been in Best American Poetry Series like Jeff McDaniel and Bao Phi.” Ultimately, Lau ends up representing the whole spectrum with a style that the Chicago Tribune dubbed “Billy Collins meets Kayne West.”
“There’s a big rift between academia and poetry slam and I don’t think that needs to exist,” Lau explained. “I often think that slam is too sloppy, and academia is too dry, and there can be a really healthy bridge between them. I’ve been trying to establish an academic framework for people to interpret slam, coming up with a vocabulary, making it more official. I’m literally writing the textbook on slam. I already have a major textbook publisher lined up, and I don’t have a deadline, so it’s pretty exciting.”
While Lau’s work may be shifting from the stage to the page, his honest and heartfelt poetry will be remembered for its grand hand gestures, periodically punctuated phrases and most of all, his pop locking skills.
Alvin Lau will be performing at the Mocha Hut this Thursday at 8 p.m. Mocha Hut is located 1301 U St. NW and admission is free.
