Likely

Lisa Coffman

“Lisa Coffman is a major poet in the making.  Imagine a voice that combines hear-of-American brooding like James Wright’s with a shaded elegance like Elizabeth Bishop’s.  Imagine Whitman’s spirit somewhere in the vicinity.  Imagine a love of small towns ringed by mountains, a shrewd ear for lonely folks’ dialogue, and a music that seems to pour out of your own life as you read these poems.  Likely is a book brimming with surprises and beauty; some of the poems—’Rapture,’ ‘The Products of Hog,’ ‘The Graveyard’—left me breathless.”—Alicia Suskin Ostriker, Judge