Litquake

And you want to feel like there's that much energy behind your book when it's being published, especially a first book like this.

that's so so good and we're in Santa Cruz we're all really big fans of Becky Olander so um I'm sure I'm we're not alone in our little part of the country um so I'm really glad I a few more things of course Jen's widely published and I won't list the amazing list of of locations but I will say um she was picked for best new poets in both 2015 and 2025 and I say that because I want to talk a little about the the journey of your life as a poet and um Jen was also the former managing director of Litquake San Francisco's literary festival and is a current Lucas artist fellow at the Mondalvo Art Center so among all the other the other acclaim I want to make sure to single those things out and again congratulations for all of that but also just for birthing this book yourself and um being

yeah

so much um well i i like to also let people hear a poem before we actually talk about any of them um so they get a sense of your voice they don't know you um and i asked you to start with um thinking about my father's erector set um so you can more uh gracefully introduce it but um thank you for again for reading for us