Steve Gehrke

Steve Gehrke (born 1971) is an American poet.

Life He was raised in Mankato, Minnesota. He graduated from Minnesota State University, and University of Texas-Austin, with an MFA. He graduated from the University of Missouri with a Ph.D., where he studied with Lynne McMahon, and Sherod Santos. He was poetry editor of the Missouri Review. He taught at the University of Missouri, Seton Hall University, and Gettysburg College. He currently teaches in the MFA program at the University of Nevada, Reno.

His work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Indiana Review, and Mississippi Review, The Yale Review, Slate, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review. His first collection of poems, The Resurrection Machine, covers a range of topics related to human health, including transplantation (he had kidney failure, and his sister, Gwen, donated a kidney ), disease, and the degeneration of the body. It won the 1999 John Ciardi Prize for Poetry. His second book, The Pyramids of Malpighi, won the Philip Levine Prize, judged that year by Philip Levine himself. Michelangelo's Seizure, his third book of poetry, was selected for the 2005 National Poetry Series by T. R. Hummer. Writing in the journal Parnassus, reviewer Leonard Barkan called it "a dazzling success".

Awards 1999 John Ciardi Prize for Poetry 2002 Philip Levine Prize in Poetry 2005 National Poetry Series 2009 Lannan Foundation, Marfa Residency