Falling to Earth

A bemused, stoop-shouldered figure who is more than a mere speaker—let’s call him a protagonist—stalks the poems of Falling to Earth. With candor and an almost grandiose simplicity, Hansen describes the limitations of his middle-aged body and, in so doing, the limitations of his enterprise in mid-life: the gracelessness of survival. Falling to Earth is the journey of a vibrant soul refreshing itself poem by poem.—Molly Peacock, from her foreword

Tom Hansen taught writing and literature for 35 years before retiring to the Black Hills of South Dakota. His credits include Paris Review, The Iowa Review, and The American Scholar.

Tom Hansen's manuscript was selected from over 900 submissions by Molly Peacock as Winner of the 2005 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. He taught writing and literature courses for 35 years at Northern State University in South Dakota. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Literary Review, The Midwest Quarterly, New York Quarterly, Poetry Northwest, Rattle, and elsewhere.