Robert Hass
Robert Hass served as US Poet Laureate from 1995-97. He is Professor Emeritus of English at UC Berkeley and the author of many books of poetry and essays, as well as translations.
Ayodele Nzinga
Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD, is an author, director, producer, thespian, dramaturge, Alameda County Women's Hall of Fame member, and the inaugural Poet Laureate of Oakland. Ayodele is the Lead Curator at BAM House Black Cultural Center in Oakland; founding director of the Lower Bottom Playaz, Oakland’s oldest North American African theater company; founding director of the Black Arts Movement Business District, Community Development Corporation of Oakland; producer of BAMBDFEST International; a YBCA Creative Corps Fellow; a California Arts Council Legacy Fellow, and a Rainin Arts Fellow. Ayodele is the author of Performing Literacy, The Horse Eaters, SorrowLand Oracle, and Incandescent. Her work appears in numerous journals and anthologies. She is co-editor of The Town, an anthology featuring 62 Oakland Poets. Ayodele Nzinga hosts Winter in America: The SpeakEasy.
Sophia Dahlin
Sophia Dahlin is a poet in the East Bay. She has been working in youth creative writing for 13 years, teaching for Poetry in the Schools, Poetry Inside Out, and Stanford Pre-Collegiate studies, and, these days, as her independent business, Young Writers' Grove. Her students have been featured in Stone Soup and other journals, won numerous River of Words prizes, and represented Oakland as Youth Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate finalist. She also leads a long-running generative poetry workshops for adult poets, co-runs two house reading series, and co-edits a small chapbook press called Eyelet. Her first book, Natch, was released in 2020 by City Lights Books, and her second collection is forthcoming in 2025.
Karla Brundage
Karla Brundage is the founder of West Oakland to West Africa Poetry Exchange and a board member of Before Columbus Foundation. Her poem "Alabama Dirt" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her most recent book, Blood Lies: Race Traitor, was nominated for a prize by the San Francisco Book Festival. Her most recent work, Lake Walking, Revolutionary Talking, an experimental theater piece, was based on the collection Black Rootedness: 54 Poets from Africa to America and featured poets from Oakland, Ghana and Nigeria. It was performed at BAM House in Oakland as well as the San Francisco International Arts Festival. Karla is a high school English teacher, a lover of the planet earth and a warrior for cross-cultural understanding. She believes that our youth are our future and has collaborated with Oakland Youth Poet Laureate, San Francisco Youth Poet Laureate organizing committee, Youth Speaks, 826 Valencia and Chapter 510 to raise student voices.
Eric Falci
I joined the faculty at U.C. Berkeley in Fall 2006 after finishing my PhD at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. My first book, Continuity and Change in Irish Poetry, 1966-2010 appeared in 2012. A second book, The Cambridge Introduction to British Poetry, 1945-2010, was published in 2015; a third, The Value of Poetry appeared in 2020. My first book of poetry, Late Along the Edgelands, was published in 2019. I serve as the series editor of Cambridge Elements in Poetry and Poetics, and editor of The Cambridge History of Irish Poetry, which is scheduled to appear in 2025. I currently serve as the Chair of the English Department, and from July 2017 through June 2021, I was Associate Dean in the Graduate Division.
Carlos Quinteros III
Carlos Quinteros III is the managing and poetry editor of the literary magazine, The Ana. He is also the co-curator of the First Friday reading series at City Lights. Other than that, he has been published in various literary magazines, he is an educator and bookseller with a slight stutter and a love for bookbinding.
Questions?
Contact the BYPL Committee by email, and we'll be happy to answer any questions you may have: youthpoet@berkeleyca.gov
The Berkeley Youth Poet Laureate program is supported by an alliance of community partners. These community partners include the City of Berkeley Civic Arts Commission and Berkeley Public Schools, with support from Urban Word.
