Mike Coughlin

Mike Coughlin has a great, spare American style that I found to be perfect for summer especially. In The 2River View, issue 10.4 Summer 2006 here, his poem "In Mid Sentence" is very classic Americana and makes you want to go on a road trip, or even out with a parent to some old, now worn and decrepit place in the neighborhood.

It's the poetry of the beauty of being out in the woods in the country during summertime, of drinking iced tea or crystal light lemonade, of your people making spaghetti that everyone eats after its cooled off because it's so hot outside and it seems like the air condition is barely keeping up. Coughlin has a great sense of place and the four dimensions of life.

I loved the opening of "In Mid Sentence":

and me nursing a fat lip.
and you sucking on a slice of watermelon.
and B.B. King on the radio.
and us in your grandmother’s convertible.
and the North River slicing in and out
          of thick August woods.
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