Earthling

by Healey, Steve

• ISBN13: 9781566891646
• ISBN10: 1566891647
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-09-15
• Publisher: Coffee House Pr

Summary

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. Steve Healey, whose poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Verse, Fence and jubilat, is the editor of the literary magazine Conduit and a graduate of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. A Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota, he teaches writing in prisons throughout the state.

Author Biography

Steve Healey teaches writing to prisoners in several Minnesota Correctional Facilities and is Associate Editor of Conduit Magazine. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including American Poetry Review, Fence, jubilat, Open City, and Verse

Table of Contents

one
when you commit a crime	7	(2)
tilt	9	(2)
small winter	11	(6)
two
my wrist split open	17	(2)
my friends are on fire	19	(2)
my debut	21	(2)
why we continue	23	(2)
the underwater reading	25	(2)
things we say	27	(2)
i do not know onesies	29	(4)
three
diary of a space suit	33	(2)
how to jump from a moving car	35	(2)
henry david thoreau junior high school	37	(2)
lungs, nougat, nothing	39	(2)
shirts vs. skins	41	(2)
as western culture declined without its knowing	43	(2)
where spring is	45	(4)
four
where shame comes from	49	(1)
standing in line at the post office	50	(2)
the story of pores	52	(1)
interview with a piece of smoke	53	(2)
circles	55	(1)
best bond ever	56	(5)
five
written on papyrus on the island of manhattan	61	(2)
x-ray blue	63	(2)
bless you	65	(2)
melt off	67	(2)
i live two doors down from the powerball winner	69	(2)
dear letter of the alphabet	71	(2)
airport bowl	73	(2)
happiness	75	(2)
i'm feeling kind of bifurcated	77	(4)
six
asshole of the immanent	81	(2)
the sunny day	83	(1)
the end of soon	84	(2)
how to lose a war	86	(2)
circumstantial	88	(3)
acknowledgments	91