Singer-songwriter, environmental activist and Francophone poet Zachary Richard has published a new volume of poetry, Outre le Mont (Over the Hill).
Published jointly the UL Lafayette Press and New Brunswick’s La Grande Marée, Outre le Mont cleaves closely to themes that, according to Richard, have long been threaded through his oeuvre: “the beauty and power of nature and Francophone identity in North America.”
Best known as a musician — and even better known, despite being a Scott native, in Canada as an award-winning singer-songwriter who performs mainly in French — Richard is no stranger to poetry. According to his website, he became interested in the discipline following a chance encounter with Alan Ginsberg in New Orleans in the late 1960s and he counts the beat poets as his primary influences. He is the recipient of literature prizes in Canada and Europe for his poetry.
A selection of poems in Outre le Mont has been translated into English.
Hear Richard reading several of the poems with musical accompaniment here. Click here to purchase an autographed copy of Outre le Mont.