Lisa Couturier is a writer, poet, and animal advocate. Her collection of essays, The Hopes of Snakes (2006), is described as “beautiful, intelligent, and literary.”  Her collection of poems, Animals / Bodies (2014), “gets right to the beating heart of what it means to meet, to lose, or to be a living creature.” Couturier is a 2012 Pushcart Prize winner for her essay “Dark Horse,” which also was nominated for the Grantham Prize for Environmental Writing. She is cited as a notable essayist in Best American Essays, 2004, 2006 and 2011. Among many other places, her prose has appeared in Orion, Isotope, National Geographic’s Heart of a Nation, The New York Zoological Society’s Wildlife Conservation, the American Nature Writing series, Minding Nature, and City Creatures. She lives with her family and six horses on the nationally acclaimed Agricultural Reserve in Maryland.

John Gery has published seven books of poetry, most recently, Have at You Now! (2014). His work has appeared throughout the U.S., Europe, and Canada and has been translated into seven languages. Gery has also published criticism on poets ranging from John Ashbery to Marilyn Chin, as well as a critical book on the nuclear threat and American poetry. He has co-authored a guidebook to Ezra Pound’s Venice and a biography of Armenian poet Hmayeak Shems, has co-edited four books of poetry and criticism, and has worked as a collaborative translator from Serbian, Italian, Chinese, Armenian and French. His awards include fellowships from the NEA, the Fulbright Foundation, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, and the University of Minnesota. A Research Professor of English at University of New Orleans and Director of the Ezra Pound Center for Literature, Brunnenburg, Italy, he lives in New Orleans with his wife, poet Biljana Obradovic, and their son Petar.

Poetry & Conversation: John Gery, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, Maryland https://live.prattlibrary.org/612

This Sunday at 3:00PM, come and see John read from his newly released collection Have at You Now! The reading will take place as part of the Maple Leaf Bar Poetry Series, the longest running poetry reading event in the South. If you’re in New Orleans, swing by the Maple Leaf at 3:00 on Sunday the 30th of March to hear John, and other poets, read from their work.

Next month, John will be attending a variety of different events in honor of National Poetry Month, including a reading and book signing at Octavia Books in New Orleans on Thursday, April 17th. Look for more information closer to the date, and don’t forget to pick up your copy of Have at You Now! You can also keep track of John’s events and appearances via his Facebook and Twitter.

Credit to http://brokeassstuart.com

On Thursday, March 6th 2014 John will be reading with poet Victoria Brockmeier at Sweetness 7 Cafe in Buffalo, NY. The reading will take place at 6pm at the cafe on 220 Grant Street. Copies of John’s new book, Have at You Now! will be available for purchase, and there will be a signing.

On Sunday, December 8th at 3pm, John’s MFA poetry class from the University of New Orleans will read their work at the Maple Leaf Bar, 8216 Oak Street, New Orleans. John’s students will be joined by fellow UNO professor Carolyn Hembree’s students, for a collaborative reading of their poetry. The afternoon will showcase diverse, exciting work from a wide variety of poets, so if you’re in town, please do stop on by! You can find the event on Facebook, here.