Thank you so much Paola.
Thank you Poetry Center, thank you Tyler and your entire team,
it is my pleasure to be here.
I'm going to start first by turning my phone off.
Because my mom is a type that, she's watching.
And so she's the type to text me, and be like,
do that one poem.
So I'm going to do it, Ma, I got you, but don't text.
I'm going to read from a bit of this book.
This was designed to be the book release.
And I'm very thankful that Tyler said yes.
Writing about mass incarceration,
and the impact on women and children,
it feels like a dissertation.
Until you realize how impacted you are by it.
My father has been incarcerated for the majority of my life.
All the men in my family have been impacted by prison.
If not in prison, working at a prison.
And so this is about that.