The Nature of Poetry

Join Courtney LeBlanc, Arlington’s Poet Laureate, for a short walk through Bon Air Rose Garden. The walk will include several stops where the group will gather and Courtney will read a poem that has a nature theme. A brief discussion about the poem will follow. Courtney will provide a prompt at the conclusion of the walk, and the group can write their own nature-inspired poem.

Courtney LeBlanc is author of the full length collections Her Whole Bright Life, winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize (Write Bloody, 2023), Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart (Riot in Your Throat, 2021), and Beautiful & Full of Monsters (VA Press, 2020). Her latest collection, Her Dark Everything, was released in April 2025 from from Riot in Your Throat. She is the Arlington Poet Laureate, a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellow (2022), and the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry. She loves nail polish, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning.

Host or Publisher Arlington Cultural Affairs