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Earthling: Poems
A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
Earthling confronts our deepest fears in clear and haunting language, from "a poet of extraordinary gifts" (American Academy of Arts and Letters). "Earthling" is one of the oldest words in the English language, our original word for ploughman, a keeper of the earth. In poems simultaneously ordinary and otherworldly, James Longenbach traces the life of a modern-day earthling as he looks squarely at his little patch of earth and at the vast emptiness of interstellar space. Beginning with the death of the earthling’s mother and ending with a confrontation with his own mortality, the poems within Earthling resist complaint or agitation. In them, the real and the imagined, the material and the allegorical, intersect at shifting angles and provide fresh perspectives and lasting consolation.
Earthling confronts our deepest fears in clear and haunting language, from "a poet of extraordinary gifts" (American Academy of Arts and Letters). "Earthling" is one of the oldest words in the English language, our original word for ploughman, a keeper of the earth. In poems simultaneously ordinary and otherworldly, James Longenbach traces the life of a modern-day earthling as he looks squarely at his little patch of earth and at the vast emptiness of interstellar space. Beginning with the death of the earthling’s mother and ending with a confrontation with his own mortality, the poems within Earthling resist complaint or agitation. In them, the real and the imagined, the material and the allegorical, intersect at shifting angles and provide fresh perspectives and lasting consolation.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published November 28, 2017
4 people are currently reading
102 people want to read
About the author
James Longenbach
37 books35 followersJames Longenbach is a poet and critic whose work is often featured in publications such as The New Yorker, Paris Review, and Slate. He lives in Rochester, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 26, 2022
Often I’m asked if I’d return to where I came from, / resume the life of the person I once was, / but the answer, any answer, / implies a narrative/ about the purpose of suffering.
May 10, 2018
This is White Male poetry. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that, but it will never connect with me as deeply as it could due to that.
September 11, 2023
All of these poems are wonderful, and some are astonishing. Longenbach's ability to explore wide ranges of emotional states with a deliberately small palette of words and a mastery of line is something to which I aspire in my own feeble verse.
August 21, 2022
Me: “Oh, it’s called Earthling, like what aliens called humans in 1950s sci-fi, lol!”
James Logenbach: “Earthling is one of the oldest words in the English language, our original word for ploughman, a keeper of the earth. In poems simultaneously ordinary and otherworldly…”
Logenbach’s Earthling is certainly about things of the earth. He ponders (fixates?) on how we’re here for a little, like everyone else has been or will be, but the earth and sky and water remain. In early parts of the book he explores returning “home” – the geography where he grew up. The concept of home is time travel – he remembers what happened in places a long time ago; his dead mother is there and not there:
“I heard my mother’s voice.
I heard it plainly, as if she were standing in the room.
‘I know it’s early, she said,
But I’m planning ahead for Christmas.
‘So I’d like to remember: What kind of coffee do you like?
Regular, or decaf, or both at certain times?
I want to be prepared, in case you’d like a cup when you’re here.'”
He perfectly captures a loving parent.
In the end of the book he is the parent facing his own mortality. He observes the younger lives, and their comings and goings. He yearns for more seasons, but finds some kind of peace or at least some sort of role in a bigger world: “The boats come in, the boats go out…/Can there be any day but this?/Look, there is the sea, and there is the sky.”
In another one, to the earth:
“What space I inhabit/You’ll fill with water or sky.”
If you’re looking for a quiet little volume to contemplate death and time and home, this might be the right book for you right now.
James Logenbach: “Earthling is one of the oldest words in the English language, our original word for ploughman, a keeper of the earth. In poems simultaneously ordinary and otherworldly…”
Logenbach’s Earthling is certainly about things of the earth. He ponders (fixates?) on how we’re here for a little, like everyone else has been or will be, but the earth and sky and water remain. In early parts of the book he explores returning “home” – the geography where he grew up. The concept of home is time travel – he remembers what happened in places a long time ago; his dead mother is there and not there:
“I heard my mother’s voice.
I heard it plainly, as if she were standing in the room.
‘I know it’s early, she said,
But I’m planning ahead for Christmas.
‘So I’d like to remember: What kind of coffee do you like?
Regular, or decaf, or both at certain times?
I want to be prepared, in case you’d like a cup when you’re here.'”
He perfectly captures a loving parent.
In the end of the book he is the parent facing his own mortality. He observes the younger lives, and their comings and goings. He yearns for more seasons, but finds some kind of peace or at least some sort of role in a bigger world: “The boats come in, the boats go out…/Can there be any day but this?/Look, there is the sea, and there is the sky.”
In another one, to the earth:
“What space I inhabit/You’ll fill with water or sky.”
If you’re looking for a quiet little volume to contemplate death and time and home, this might be the right book for you right now.
December 12, 2017
A book that invites one to share and reflect upon the sentiments of its poetic lines. This a democratic book that wants us to consider our daily lives, our historical lives and asks us who we are, where we have been and where we want to go.
“...when the artist in each of us created/The material world by finding the unfamiliar in the familiar,/By finding what we’d never known to be ourselves/In what seemed dead—/Such moments are forgotten by most people./Or else they’re guarded in a secret place of memory,/Too much like visitations of the gods/To be mixed with everyday thinking.”
This book honors the reader by taking the life of the poet and building a bridge to the reader to share human moments of doubt, grace, and hard-won wisdom. Of the 50 plus poetry books I have read this year, none have led to me write and reflect for the better part of an afternoon and made me not only grateful that I read a terrific book but also one that stimulated a personal inventory taking.
“...when the artist in each of us created/The material world by finding the unfamiliar in the familiar,/By finding what we’d never known to be ourselves/In what seemed dead—/Such moments are forgotten by most people./Or else they’re guarded in a secret place of memory,/Too much like visitations of the gods/To be mixed with everyday thinking.”
This book honors the reader by taking the life of the poet and building a bridge to the reader to share human moments of doubt, grace, and hard-won wisdom. Of the 50 plus poetry books I have read this year, none have led to me write and reflect for the better part of an afternoon and made me not only grateful that I read a terrific book but also one that stimulated a personal inventory taking.
February 5, 2018
This 2018 volume contains a searching, haunting expression of
how rich and strange it is to be an earthling. This earthling is
a 21st century person trying to assess her time on earth. A spare
and clean use of language at times feels otherworldly. From the
poem "Crocodile": "When the light rests low on the Nile, the Ganges,
the Everglades--/I could be anywhere--/Day is discontinued,
motionless./A voice is what you have."
how rich and strange it is to be an earthling. This earthling is
a 21st century person trying to assess her time on earth. A spare
and clean use of language at times feels otherworldly. From the
poem "Crocodile": "When the light rests low on the Nile, the Ganges,
the Everglades--/I could be anywhere--/Day is discontinued,
motionless./A voice is what you have."
January 31, 2021
This collection of poems contains some very nice poems, but the whole is not very cohesive in my eyes. Maybe I just dont understand their depth, but im not a fan of the collection. Whereas many great poems evoke unshakable emotions, this collection struggled to do so. A few, such as the crocodile, were great, but I would not reccomend reading the whole.
August 5, 2024
Didn’t connect for me, pretty boring, unadventurous, meh language with unlively insight. Someone else said it was White Male poetry and yeah…. Sad that one of the first man’s poetry collections I picked up from the library was this guy. Might not do it again for awhile. Sorry James, I’m sure you’re alright, but this wasn’t for me.
December 29, 2018
Some poems are very interesting. Others seem to take themselves too seriously, are deep for the sake of depth and the meaning is lost without light. In general, I found the collection to be less thought-provoking than most of the poetry I read.
February 10, 2018
This was good- not quite my style, but a worthwhile and very accessible addition to a poetry collection.
October 3, 2019
I didn’t enjoy all the poems, but I was surprised often enough with something really beautiful that this high rating was won.
January 4, 2020
Not bad at all. Nothing grabbed me though. I might look up some of his analysis.
January 28, 2022
A solid collection with some remarkable poems as well.
October 11, 2025
the crocodile was my favorite
I've been looking for a poetry book after reading milk and honey years ago and finally something good! Reading this makes me want to explore more poetry books and learn about the techniques!
what's it called when there are subsections to a poem?
using line breaks (to connect the line before and after the centered dot)
indenting last line + with only one word
2022
2025
(October-March)
Medicine. Daily dosage. Too rich to intake in a single gulp.
2025
August
Desert. Sadness. Last line bombshells. The sky and the sea. (Read his other poetry collection with Thursday)
I've been looking for a poetry book after reading milk and honey years ago and finally something good! Reading this makes me want to explore more poetry books and learn about the techniques!
what's it called when there are subsections to a poem?
using line breaks (to connect the line before and after the centered dot)
indenting last line + with only one word
2022
2025
(October-March)
Medicine. Daily dosage. Too rich to intake in a single gulp.
2025
August
Desert. Sadness. Last line bombshells. The sky and the sea. (Read his other poetry collection with Thursday)
September 1, 2023
Even better the second time. I've committed several poems to memory.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews