Turned Earth: Poems

Turned Earth, the fifth collection of poems by Brad Richard, offers a portrait of the artist as a grieving son who is also a husband, teacher, gardener, and attentive witness to our precarious world. Navigating life after his mother’s death, the speaker uses memory and imagination to understand, as one poem’s title declares, ＂How I Came to This.＂ Tender and trenchant, elegiac yet often livened by humor, Richard’s poems affirm the sustaining power of hope and love.

Brad Richard is a poet based in New Orleans who has received honors from the Louisiana Division of the Arts and Poets & Writers. He is the author of four other books of poems, including Parasite Kingdom, winner of the Tenth Gate Prize. In 2015, he was named Louisiana Artist of the Year.