Meet the Oakland Youth Poet Laureate Judges
We are very grateful to all our judges for their time and their dedication to Oakland youth.
Each year five judges work together to select the Oakland Youth Poet Laureate.
Our judges represent a diverse group of experts from literacy, arts, and educational organizations as well as local celebrity authors, artists, and activists.
Past judges have included U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, poets and playwrights Chinaka Hodge and Aimee Suzara, community organizer and Poetry for the People alum Maria Poblet, literary journal editor Kiala Givehand, NAACP image award nominee Arisa White, KQED Columnist Pendarvis Harshaw, award-winning writer MK Chavez, former Oakland City Councilmember Wilson Riles, Hip Hop for Change Founder and Executive Director Khafre Jay, author, musician, educator, and community organizer Tyson Amir, former Oakland Youth Poets Laureate and Finalists, as well as many other local authors and community leaders.
Meet the 2025 OYPL Judges
Myra Estrada
Myra Estrada is an African American and Mexican female teaching artist and poet.
She is the 2021 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate and has since then performed across the Bay Area in spaces such as the DeYoung Museum, Ella Baker Center, Youth Speaks, and The Oakland Public Library. She has had the honor of sharing space with community legends such as Black Panther Chairwoman, Elaine Brown and Co-Founder of the BLM Movement, Alicia Garza.
Myra is currently studying Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley gaining knowledge on the world that surrounds her. She hopes to become a representation of the revolutionists who have walked these sacred grounds before her and the revolutionary brown babies that will come after her.
Marisa Lin
Marisa Lin (she/they) is a Minnesota-raised poet and community organizer based in the East Bay. Her debut chapbook, DREAM ELEVATOR, was published in 2024 by Kernpunkt Press, and their work can be found in various literary publications including Porter House Review, Cimarron Review, Poetry South, and The Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day series. Marisa tutors students in writing at San Quentin State Prison and helps coordinate a prisoner solidarity phone line for a prison abolition organization.
During the day, Marisa works as a program performance auditor at the City of Oakland to bring greater accountability, transparency, and equity to City services.
David Maduli
David Maduli is a father, husband, educator, and author of the dual poetry collection Alemany Bay Window / Redwood Coast Record Crate (Sampaguita Press, 2024). His work, often inflected by many years as a DJ and public school teacher, has received the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize.
Born in San Francisco and a descendant of migrants from the Philippines, he is a longtime resident of East Oakland where he completed his MFA at Mills College with a fellowship in Community Poetics. A veteran teacher and administrator in Oakland and Alameda public schools, he continues to work as an educational leader and researcher supporting schools and districts across the state and beyond.
Azucena Rasilla
Azucena Rasilla is a bilingual journalist from East Oakland. She’s the arts and community reporter for The Oaklandside, curating the city’s rich artistic landscape and cultural heritage. She is a longtime reporter on Oakland arts, culture, and community.
She is also the host of Culture Makers, a quarterly live event where she is in conversation with other Oakland creatives.
She started her career at the East Bay Express. As an independent journalist, her work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED, Eater, Curbed, and other publications.
J.R. Rice
J.R. Rice is a Black man, writer, teacher, event host & curator, and spoken word artist, born and raised in Oakland, California.
He has a B.A in Creative Writing and an English Education teaching credential from California State University of Long Beach. While studying abroad in Greece, he was mentored by the author, George Crane. His novel, Broken Pencils earned the 2024 Literary Titan Gold Book Award, 2024 Pencraft Summer Best Book Award winner for Young Adult Coming of Age Fiction, and the 2024 Hawthorne Prize Finalist for Best Fiction. His poetry collection, I Was, Am, Will Be, is a continuation in the Broken Pencils series.
To learn more about J.R. Rice, please visit his website at www.jrrice.com, opens a new window.