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.

Arvind Nandakumar (they/them) is no one of consequence. A child of Forward Arts located in Baton Rouge Louisiana, Arvind has competed at the International Brave New Voices Festival. They have also completed at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational in 2016. In 2017, Arvind became the Individual World Poetry Slam Champion. Arvind is a poet of color on the autism spectrum and sometimes writes poems about that, but writes poems about other stuff too, like being a 1.25-1.75 Indian-something immigrant who never stops moving around. When they’re not writing poems, Arvind spends their days as a student at UC Berkeley studying Microbial Biology, organizing really awesome poetry events, djing occasionally, and coding for fun.

Fisayo Adeyeye is the former Poetry Editor of Fourteen Hills, a former Co-Curator of the VelRo Graduate Reading Series. He is the author of Cradles (Nomadic Press).

Lark Omura was born and raised on the island of Maui, currently resides in Oakland, and is relocating in July to Brooklyn, NYC to begin an MFA in Poetry at Rutgers Newark. She is a VONA Voices alumna, and her work can be found in Bamboo Ridge, Canary, and The Hawaii Review, among other places. Her writing contemplates the beauty of being human within the context of a capitalist society.

Kim Shuck is a silly protein. She has won some awards, earned some degrees, been published in various places, done readings, herded poets, written some cranky poems to City Hall types, and is the 7th and current poet laureate of San Francisco. Her most recent book is Clouds Running In which was kindly published by Taurean Horn Press.

Golda Supernova plays in bands Golda + the Guns, DeathGlam and The Soft Stars. Her songs span poetry, prose, theater and storytelling as explored in her performances with 8th Wonder, Bindlestiff Studio, and most currently, Dark Heart — A Concert Narrative. Golda recently finished her role as Rocky for Jessica Hagedorn’s Gangster of Love, and is set to workshop Dark Heart this fall at Bindlestiff Studio.