Tucked behind a skate park and community center, sunlight danced across the faces of five young poets as they performed before a sea of supportive family members and friends. On Friday, Aug. 1, the REACH Ashland Youth Center hosted the 2025 Alameda County Youth Poet Laureate award ceremony, marking the end of the poetry contest held annually for writers ages 13 to 18.
After online submissions closed on April 30, a panel of judges with extensive poetry experience was selected to pick the finalists. Each student submission was judged based on writing, performance, and an interview with judges to see the meaning, intent and story behind each poem. In the end, one finalist was named Alameda County Youth Poet Laureate (ACYPL), and another Vice Laureate.
“We want to give [a] voice to teenagers who may not have considered poetry as a way out there for their emotions. I think it’s a good way to put your feelings down on paper,” said Lisa Harris, social justice services manager for Alameda County Library, now in her fifth year working with ACYPL.
Syla Layne, a rising freshman at Chabot College and past participant in the competition, co-hosted the ceremony. “I’ve always been like a big helper around here, and [the organizers] were like, hey, do you want to emcee?” said Layne. “I wanted to help out.”
ACYPL and poetry is still a huge part of her life. “Everything [in my life] wasn’t consistent, but what was consistent were my words and how I was feeling,” she said. “I found my way back into poetry and how it’s such a tool in escaping, feeling connected to different people.”
Out of about 45 student submissions, each consisting of three original poems, five finalists were selected—Anika Mangla, Anjanae Lewis, Mia Rosales, Krishita Kataria and Willow Perry—with Mangla from Fremont as ACYPL and Lewis from Dublin as the Vice ACYPL.
Mangla, a 17-year-old rising senior at Irvington High School, has had a successful run with her poetry this year—winning second place at YouthSpeaks finals, championing with the Bay Area slam team at Brave New Voices (worlds), and gearing up to publish her own poetry book, “Embers and Flame.”
“I Survived,” the original poem she performed at the award ceremony, covered the alienation of immigrants and recent ICE raids across the nation—an issue personal to Mangla and some audience members as well.
“I use a lot of my poetry as activism and protest,” said Mangla. “With everything going on with immigration, and I feel like, especially the city that I live in, there’s not enough activism going on. So this is my way of doing that. I really connect a lot of stories I see on the news and with my own thoughts on the whole situation.”
Harris said she believes the use of poetry as activism is more important than ever.
“Right now, I think we’re at a time in this country where the most important voices that we have are the voices of young people, and however a young person chooses to express themselves is valid,” said Harris. “Poetry is [how] you’re raising your voice about everything that’s going on, that is going to affect your lives as you mature into adults in this kind of [messed up] world.”
Learn more about the Alameda County Youth Poet Laureate program at aclibrary.org/youth-poet/.
Note: This story was edited to reflect the correct number of student submissions.
