Lines and lyrics from Litquake Nation! Enjoy line breaks during your lunch break, as some of the Bay Area’s best poets and musicians share their work in the great outdoors.

Chiyuma Elliott is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her first book of poems, California Winter League, was published by Unicorn Press in 2015.

Leora Fridman is an interdisciplinary artist, organizer and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the author of My Fault, selected by Eileen Myles for the CSU First Book Poetry Prize, and collaborates widely with artists, writers and community organizations.

Robert Andrew Perez is a poet living in Berkeley. He is an editor for speCt!, an artbook press that prints small-batch single-author chapbooks and the magazine Oar in Oakland, where he also curates readings. His chapbook, the field, is being published in fall this year from Omnidawn.

John Shoptaw teaches poetry writing and ecopoetry at UC Berkeley. His Times Beach (2015), a book of poems on the Mississippi River watershed, won the Northern California Book Award in poetry.

Musical Guest:
Hailing from Mendocino County, House of Mary is a rocking trio that includes Aubrie Arnoux (vocals and harmonica), Spencer Byrnes (guitar and vocals), and Blair Rowland-Mullen (drums). Often compared to classic bands such as Fleetwood Mac with a modern indie vibe, their all-original music is sexy, clever, and catchy.