SPOKES Youth Advisory Board
Want to Join a team of young people who actively participate in Youth Speaks programs, give us feedback, help us imagine, and plan our activities and events throughout the year? Join SPOKES! SPOKES is Youth Speaks youth advisory board! Each year, Bay Area youth join SPOKES to grow as cultural organizers and arts practitioners by using their leadership skills to make the world more just, liberatory, and fun for their communities.
Lilith
Lilith Kelly (she/her) is a Latina transgender poet and Bay Area native, recognized as a semifinalist in the 2024 Teen Poetry Slam. Serving as the president of the CVCHS Slam Poetry Team and an active member of Spokes, Lilith regularly participates in Youth Speaks events. Her work thoughtfully explores themes of the trans experience, romance, and mental health, offering a candid and nuanced perspective through her poetry. Lilith’s favorite subjects are math and psychology, reflecting her curiosity and analytical mindset.
Mallory
Mallory Asis (she/her) is a mixed Filipina poet and storyteller from San Diego, California. She is the 2024 Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam Champion and a member of the 2024 Berkeley Slam Team, the #2 ranked adult slam poetry team at the Bigfoot Regional Poetry Slam. Grounded in the belief that poetry is an act of liberation and reinvention, her work dismantles patriarchal and colonial narratives while exploring identity, diaspora, and collective memory in performance and on the page. She is a Mellon Mays Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, where she bridges spoken word with academic research on femme diaspora poetry and is a founder of the Bay Area Poetry Slam (BAPS) at Cal. She has performed and presented research at Stanford, Florida State University, University of Wisconsin, The Courage Museum at the Presidio, and elsewhere. Mallory currently serves on the Youth Speaks SPOKES Advisory Board and has an upcoming publication in The Rumpus.
Mei
Mei Chung (she/her) is a 15-year-old poet from San Francisco who joined SPOKES because poetry and spoken word is something that she couldn’t live without. She aims to inspire people with her poetry and help other teens feel heard and understood. Mei is also a singer with the Young Women's Choral Projects of San Francisco. In her spare time, she enjoys playing guitar and hanging out with her two cats. She loves the Youth Speaks and SPOKES community and hopes to make a positive impact in the world with her writing
