Turned Earth

“Brad Richard is not only a poet but a master gardener. In these poems, he turns to the earth—whether he is tending his own stubborn, lush garden in New Orleans, rooting through a childhood that reblooms in memory, laying to rest his lost mother, or bringing into his landscape the labor of love. Richard gives us an earth disturbed but fertile, vulnerable but verdant, uprooted but regrown.” ~David Groff

“In Turned Earth, Richard holds on to the ordinary exquisite as well as ‘killer invasives.’ The latter includes views of social injustice. Especially keen is his crown of sonnets, ‘Matrilineation: Homage to Nell Parker (1944–2015),’ an elegiac apostrophe where son muses over the mother’s poetics. The reader will find sudden beauty everywhere.” ~Kimiko Hahn

“Turned Earth is a brilliantly meditative and mournful inquiry into forms of being and making. This significant and expansive collection calls us to map ecologies of planetary life, love, and loss across varied landscapes. Richard’s book is a revelation.” ~Tonya M. Foster