Stan Lake reads four poems from his debut collection, A Toad in a Glass Jar: “A Toad in a Glass Jar,” “I Hope Heaven Is a Wild Place,” “What Weight Does a Tree Carry?” and “Long Before the War.”

Stan Lake is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker living in Pfafftown, North Carolina, with his wife Jess and their house full of animals. A veteran of the North Carolina Army National Guard, he often draws on his deployment to Iraq and his love of Southern wildlife in his work. His poetry collection, A Toad in a Glass Jar (2026), was published by Dead Reckoning Collective.