It’s time to start broadcasting!

In this inaugural episode of Should’ve Sent a Poet, co-hosts Natalie “Bea” Bickelhaupt and Natalie Epstein-Hogue discuss the podcast’s namesake, 1997’s Contact. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Jodie Foster, and based on Carl Sagan’s novel of the same name, Contact is the perfect place to start our long journey through the stars. It follows radio astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway as she makes first contact with extraterrestrials orbiting the star Vega.

Contact is both thematically and formally resonant. It touches on faith, science, and humanity’s place on Earth and in the cosmos. It’s also all about sending and listening to audio messages. A real podcaster’s movie. This episode also features discussions of the Wow! Signal, what gets lost in the adaptation of Sagan’s novel, and the creepy antics of one Rev. Palmer Joss.

You can listen now on all major podcast platforms (minus Spotify), as well as YouTube. If you have thoughts or questions you’d like read in an upcoming Q&A episode, send an email to submissions@poets_pod.com. And as always, be good and watch movies.