It's a rare treasure that a debut collection is published in a poet's ninth decade, but this is exactly what Miles Coon has achieved with The Quotient of My Self Divided by Myself. Once a successful attorney and industrialist, he turned to poetry over twenty years ago, dedicating himself to the art wholeheartedly ever since, using it to approach the unstated question famously posed by T.S. Eliot in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" What is the meaning of my life? Cumulatively, these poems offer not just one but many answers to that question, telling the story of how to build an authentic self and grow into the person you're meant to be.
About the Author :
Miles A. Coon resides in Palm Beach, Florida, with Mimi, his wife of more than fifty years. He received an M.F.A. in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College in 2002 after having spent thirty years in a manufacturing business. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, class of 1962, and the University of Virginia, with highest honors, class of 1959, where he studied Philosophy and Economics. His poems have appeared widely, and his chapbook, Homeland Security, was published by Jeanne Duval Editions in 2005. Miles is a supporter of many non-profit poetry organizations and independent presses. He is a self-described "workshop junkie," having participated in well over fifty of them. Miles founded the Palm Beach Poetry Festival in 2005 and served as its President and Chairman of the Board until 2022.
Review :
With this book, The Quotient of My Self Divided by Myself, Miles Coon has given us an unflinching portrait of a demanding life. In many ways, it is like a symphony in three movements, three sections, each carrying a weave of contrasting themes-some melodic, some painfully dissonant. I find it especially helpful when a book allows an intricate look at someone's story, because each life is an emblem of every life. These poems invite the reader to rethink the sum total of their time in the world, to see clearly how vulnerable we've all been to the emotional complexity of family and to the imperatives of the society to which we were born. Perhaps such poems make it possible to forgive (and applaud) ourselves as well as the people who paved the roads we've been obliged to walk. -Tim Seibles
In his heart-wrenching poem "Lies," Miles Coon writes: "In the loam of all I know / but don't know I know / I dig." And how I love what he reveals with this digging. With a wise awareness of the power of language, and with an intimate and most singular voice, his poems show unfailing emotional courage and profound intelligence of the heart. His poems astonish-sometimes with their delightful humor and unique irony, or with haunting and poignant images-but always with remarkable clarity. This is an honest book. A book you'll want to keep close, like a trusted and necessary friend-vulnerable, attentive, witty, consoling, and, above all, deeply human. -Laure-Anne Bosselaar
In his debut collection, Miles Coon chronicles the silences and shouts learned from family to the love that led to a new genesis. Through griefs both personal and national, his poems range through identity and exclusion to poems of labor and coming-of-age. These poems contain generations and look at the legacy of parents and children in all its loving and messy complexity. It is a triumph of understanding who we come from, what both hearts and bodies need, and the discovery of a voice that can speak about the wounds and their healing. -Traci Brimhall
