The fifth season of Def Poetry is over, and here are our summary awards:

Three Best Performers of the Season: First, Sista Queen, an unknown young poet from Atlanta who won't be unknown much longer after tearing up the stage in episode 7. Second, Big Poppa E, who illustrated his poignant and personal words with a deft physical performance that was a pleasure to watch; and Mike McGhee, who was just plain freaky, funny and real.

After a few good episodes of Def Poetry in a row, last night's show was pretty mundane.

There were some good points. Denizen Kane's chant for unknown soldiers was evocative, and Sekou Sundiata's thoughtful piece on modern life was moving and well-performed.

What I liked about last night's Def Poetry show:

I appreciated Suhier Hammid's opener, "Mike Check", about an airport security guard named Mike and the dumb things he says as he goes through the poet's bags. Hammid is a solid performer and she knows how to construct a piece that really gets a point across (I also get racially profiled every time I go anywhere near an airplane, for some reason, so I know what she's talking about).

First, just a couple of things that annoyed me about Friday night's Def Poetry ... and then I'm going to mention a couple of things I really liked.

A quick note to let you know that Levi will be posting his weekly review of the latest Def Poetry Jam episode as usual, however it may be delayed a bit. We invite you to watch along tonight on HBO at 11:30pm ET (check your local listings for other air times) and share your thoughts on the show, its performers and what you think of the review. We'll compare notes, it'll be fun.

Def Poetry usually saves its guest stars for the closing spots, but Wyclef Jean opened up the July 15 episode. He got the half hour off to a good start with a pounding tribute to his much-misunderstood native country, Haiti. Wyclef spoke well, somehow managing to fit a backwards somersault into his piece, and proved that he can do spoken word a hell of a lot better than his fellow Fugee Lauryn Hill, who'd appeared to little effect on an earlier show this season.

Nayeli Adorador-Knudsen followed with a fast riff on fashion commercialism, delivered in a Twista-like speed patter that was pleasing to listen to. Spoken word is often about vocal texture, and one of my biggest complaints about this show is that it sometimes slips into a deadening monotony of tone. This piece was a nice departure from that syndrome.

I'm not sure about Michael Cirelli's paean to Kelis, Nas's wife, who he compared to every great female vocalist from Sarah Vaughan on. I know Nas must think a lot of Kelis and I know her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, but it seemed an odd choice for a Def Poetry poem, and it didn't bring me to the yard.

Sometimes I'm not completely sure what HBO's Def Poetry is good for. What seems to make the show unique and valuable, though, is that it brings the form known as spoken word into the living rooms of people who may never hear it anywhere else.

The only problem is, I'm not sure anyone's heard a lot of it during this season's first four episodes either. Too many gimmicky performances, too many celebrity guests. Spoken word is a tradition, a discipline, and it takes time and effort to get it right. With the fifth episode, finally, we heard a solid half-hour from some battle-tested veterans of the poetry clubs.

The first performer goes by the name of Poetri. A poet's got to be pretty confident to go around with a name like that, and this one apparently is. His piece was about road rage and the personal politics of driving. It was more rant than poem, but it was an enjoyable bit and I wished we could have heard more from him.

Shariff Simmons delivered a powerful rhyming piece that urged political awareness, touching on John Ashcroft and Enron and bringing home the refrain "fuck what you heard, act like you know".

Def Poetry's fourth episode got off to a fast start with an a cappella rap duet by two guys who call themselves Poem-cees. The theme of this piece was "you're cheating on me" -- a theme as classic as country blues, Shakespeare and Homer -- and this duo's treatment was fresh enough.

I'm glad we got into a small debate about this show last week. Some people like Def Poetry a lot, some people hate it, and you can't get very far into a discussion of this topic without revealing surprisingly vast rifts between what each of us believe the word "poetry" to mean.

Mos Def kicked off the second episode of HBO's Def Poetry with a few rhyming verses set to a backing track. Since the previous episode of this show was a bit of a snoozer, I didn't think it was a good idea for the host to show up his guests by demonstrating his hiphop skills. Luckily, the poets for episode #2 had much more to offer than the previous set, and easily held up their side.

Al Letson was first up with a physical performance piece about a kid discovering his basketball skills. "One boy one ball one dream one hoop ... listen". It was an earnest, affecting Def Poetry set piece. I've heard that LitKicks correspondent Billectric is familiar with this poet, and I'm looking forward to hearing Bill's take on the performance.