Rachelle Escamilla named Monterey County’s second Poet Laureate

Cal State Monterey Bay lecturer Rachelle Escamilla has been selected as Monterey County’s new poet laureate. She is only the second poet to hold the honor and was chosen through a competition process by the Arts Council for Monterey County, and approved by the Monterey County Board of Supervisors. She will hold the title for the next two years.

According to the Arts Council, she will receive a $5,000 honorarium, and, as part of her duties, will promote “literacy and literature and celebrate the county’s cultural heritage.”

"I'm really excited to expand my work to the greater community and to meet new people," Escamilla said. "I'm looking forward to facilitating poetry in different spaces, and collaborating in new and exciting ways with established and emerging artists in the area." 

An award-winning Chicana poet, Escamilla founded the Latinx Poetix Symposium at CSUMB and the Poets and Writers Coalition at San José State University. 

She has published three books — “Imaginary Animal” (winner of the Willow Books Prize in Literature for Poetry), “Me Drawing a Picture of Me[n], and “Space Junk from the Heavenly Palace.” 

From 2015 to 2020 she was producer and host of the poetry radio show “Out of Our Minds,” and has received the Denis Diderot Grant for 2025 to attend the Château d'Orquevaux Artists & Writers Residency in Champagne-Ardenne, France. 

Escamilla teaches public speaking, creative writing and poetry at CSUMB. She succeeds former CSUMB associate professor Daniel B. Summerhill, who was the county’s first poet laureate.