Poet and editor Richard Therrien has worked at a number of occupations, including landscape labourer, photography instructor, filmmaker, and speech writer. Born and raised on--and a repeated escapee from--the Canadian prairie, he has published across North America and currently works and lives in North Vancouver.

"Sleeping in Tall Grass" is an outstanding first poetry collection.... In the opening long poem, 'Nowhere in Sight,' Therrien uses the physical experience of walking across the prairie as a metaphor for poetry while a walking rhythm sparks spiritual insight.... Sleeping in Tall Grass is a wise book, erudite and philosophical at times but foremost a spiritual and redemptive work." Gillian Harding-Russell, The Goose, Volume 15, Issue 1

"It's a complex and multi-layered book, offering poems that are rooted in the prairie landscape, featuring a multitude of voices that speak to the familial, the historical, the philosophical and the mystical. Many of the poems are dark, weighted and at times exquisitely painful.... The personal stories he deconstructs show how the speaker submits, turns back to the land that begat him, until he sleeps in tall grass, until readers hear in 'Envoy,' the final poem, 'a voice singing of its own forgetting.'" Anne Sorbie, Alberta Views, November 2016

"I appreciate Richard Therrien's Sleeping in Tall Grass for its vulnerability, its intimate explorations of personal histories, family struggles, and the inevitability of both life and death. He offers vivid scenes, rich with feeling and emotional maturity, that give the reader powerful glimpses into the poet's eye.... [H]is colourful treatment of the prairies captures sounds and sights with exactness; I could imagine Therrien in every scene, present on every page." Canadian Literature 234 (Autumn 2017) [Full review at http://canlit.ca/article/lyric-intimacy-in-contemporary-canadian-poetry] -- Jeffrey Aaron Weingarten

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (BC Book Prizes) (2017) - Short-listed [Canada]

Alberta Book Awards, Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry (2017) - Short-listed [Canada]