John Mannone’s latest poetry chapbook, Coffee Poems: The Art of Waking (Island of Wak-Wak Press), is now available for purchase.

About Coffee Poems

In his latest collection, John explores coffee: its origin, traditions, obsessions, rituals, associations; its science and mixology; and coffee as metaphor. With a variety of forms matching the various approaches to coffee, the reader is sure to enjoy each taste.

Praise for Coffee Poems

“Whether you like your coffee swirled with a bit of cream or black and bitter, you will relish the offerings in this latest book brewed by John C. Mannone. From the stoops of the Columbian mountains, where the original Juan Valdez grew his coffee beans, to the monks of Ethiopia who, having been informed of the antics of goats that ate the coffee berry, then imbibed a liquid from those same berries and hence were able to remain awake through the long evening prayers, and on through history to the author’s own cup steaming before him, the face of his long dead father looking back upon him from the “fluid folds of the dark pool,” there is much to savor and to learn in this small collection. The poems are testaments to the magic and mysticism of the drink from a poet with his “fingers wrapping the … cup / as something holy.” Mannone brings a lifetime of refining his palette and honing his use of language to produce a delightful collection of 16 poems, an apt bit of reading while you drink your first morning cup—or your final afternoon cup—of the “essential elixir.”
—Connie Jordan Green, author of Nameless as the Minnows

Coffee Poems: The Art of Waking (Island of Wak-Wak Press), is now available for purchase.

About the Author

John C. Mannone has poems in Windhover, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry South, Baltimore Review, New England Journal of Medicine, and others. He was awarded the 2017 Jean Ritchie Fellowship and served as National Federation of State Poetry Societies 2018 celebrity judge. He has five full-length collections, five chapbooks, and his first short fiction collection, Dark Wind, Dark Water (Mind’s Eye Publishing, 2025). A retired professor of physics, he teaches mathematics and creative writing. http://jcmannone.wordpress.com ​