The coffee freaks of Plattsburgh, NY have found a new voice in Dr. Thomas J. Braga. He writes poems on a coffee mug, his recent collection speaks about his acuities of life at a coffee joint.
While being seated at a cozy spot in a famous coffee shop in Plattsburgh called Koffee Kat, Braga mentioned that his latest poem collection is different from the poems he’s written before. “It is comedic but not light”, he said. At the same joint, Koffee Kat, Braga coined the term “caffeineites” for people who visit coffee joints too often, himself included.
Shortly Braga started jotting on a coffee mug and its handle (and also on few coffee berries!). This retired Plattsburgh State French professor also wrote inside the cup- five lines on the cup, an additional line in the handle and some one to three words as conclusion. And all these lines are on coffee enthusiasts whom he met at the Koffee Kat. “I obsess on certain images and sounds,” he said, with a mug that fits easily into customer cup holders.
Next he read aloud a poem and that’s when he sensed that the sendoff could be the title of the poem too.
This latest collection from Braga is light in a few places but deeply philosophical at many other places. But overall Braga in this collection has perfectly incarnated the sensitive states of java freaks shopping in and around the Koffee Kat.
Braga said that while working on this collection, he used to visit the Koffee Kat literally everyday because he wanted to describe what he observed and reasoned of other visitors at the joint. He added that the whole book was a result of his regular visits to the Koffee Kat.
In this collection that depicts life in a coffee joint, Braga has jested around with words, notions, images and sounds familiar to anyone who’s ever stopped at a coffee shop to occupy their travel cup holder with a certain addicting beverage. These poems contain a fortune of words packed with double entendre. The collection embraces the darker part of his interpretations well but is rightly humorous compared to his earlier poem collections.
A Portuguese American (he considers himself an ethnic New Englander), Braga was born in 1943 in Fall River, Mass. He holds a bachelor’s degree in French from Providence College and a doctorate in French literature from Rice University. He was a professor at the California State College, San Bernardino and Plattsburgh State and has 14 collections of poetry to his credits.