Earthling

Poetry by Steve Healey

September 1, 2004 • 6 x 9 • 118 pages • 978-1-56689-164-6

A debut collection of poems examining the pitfalls, pratfalls, and particular beauty of being an earthling.

With a touch of comic absurdity, these metaphor-fueled poems look at what it means to be human in a culture of alienation and contradiction. Earthling both celebrates and critiques this brave new world and its elusive, Hollywood-tinged reality, defying aesthetic categorization as it stokes the fire of cultural discourse and provides a guiding light for our journey through the elements of a hypermodern world.

About the Author

Steve Healey is the author of two previous books of poetry, 10 Mississippi and Earthling, both from Coffee House Press. His poems have been published in magazines such as American Poetry Review, the Awl, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, Jubilat, and in anthologies, most recently The New Census: an Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. He’s a professor of English and creative writing at Minneapolis College.

Reviews

“Steve Healey’s dazzling first book of poems, Earthling, will leave you reeling. Poem after poem, bold imagination coupled with intense passion sets this book ablaze. His very unique sense of humor adds to the delight.” —James Tate

“These poems are so enlivened they seem to have yeast in them. In every one, the consequences of a single thought or action expand to the ends of the alphabet. They talk right at you as if there were no tomorrow, but in the best of all possible finales, decide that there is.” —Mary Ruefle