Gary Lemons studied for two years with Donald Justice, Norman Dubie, and Marvin Bell in the Undergraduate Poetry Workshop at Iowa City from 1971–1973. He has published five books of poetry, including Bristol Bay, Día de los Muertos, Snake, Snake: Second Wind (the last two of which comprise the first two books of the Snake Quartet), and The Weight of Light. For decades he fished Alaska, built grain elevators, worked high steel and re-forested the clear cuts of the Pacific Northwest. Currently he and his wife, the artist Nöle Giulini, teach yoga from their studio, Tenderpaws, in Port Townsend, Washington.