Aerik Francis is a Queer Black & Latinx poet based in Denver, Colorado. He writes with the mantra "Live Your Puns" - meaning to be attentive to both words' and life's own homophones and multiple meanings. He was the 2019 Amiri Baraka Scholar for poetry at SWP at Naropa University. Aerik has work published and/or forthcoming in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, the Santa Clara Review, Kissing Dynamite, TSPJ, Tiny Spoon, and Spit Poet Zine. Find him on instagram or twitter @phaentompoet.