ALAN COHEN’S first publication as a poet was in the PTA newsletter when he was ten years old. He graduated from Farmingdale High School, where he was Poetry Editor of the magazine The Bard. He earned a BA in English from Vassar College and attended the University of California at Davis Medical School. He completed his internship in Boston and his residency in Hawaii. Alan then served as a Primary Care physician, teacher, and Chief of Primary Care at the VA, first in Fresno, CA, and later in Roseburg, OR. He has continued to Wille both medical and literary articles; over the years, he has had letters to the editor published in Poetry and The New Yorker and has been published in the American Journal of Medicine and the New England Journal of Medicine. In the past two years, he has had 182 poems published in ninety venues.
He lives with Anita, his wife of 45 years, in Eugene, Oregon.
A. Cohen’s work has been previously featured by In Parentheses.
Review reposted with permission from the author. Originally available at Readers’ Favorite.
Review by Pikasho Deka for Readers’ Favorite
Alan Cohen draws upon his own experiences to weave a colorful tapestry of life and its many different aspects in Taxonomic Vignettes. Cohen tells captivating stories through a collection of mesmerizing poems that delve into the myriad of surprises life has to offer. These poetic stories show how our trajectories in life take us to different places where the people we once knew become strangers with choices and priorities of their own. One of the poems is about a friend who believes Jack Gilbert is the best poet of them all. As we evolve, our friendships also change, as our differences begin to cast a shadow over our relationships, beautifully demonstrated in “Best Poet Hands Down.” “A Nail” tells the story of two friends who drift apart over the course of their lives.
Taxonomic Vignettes is a masterclass in poetic storytelling. Alan Cohen’s verses strengthen their hold on you the more you read, and by the end, you feel you will revisit this collection over and over again. Most of these poems reflect on the narrator’s life and varied experiences, with a special focus on friendships. It’s a very immersive poetry collection, and at times, you almost feel like you’re seeing life play out through another person’s perspective. Some of Cohen’s verses also display a hint of dry humor that I very much enjoyed. This collection screams for a reread and is one of the many reasons why I think it will be a hit among more experienced poetry readers. If you’re a poetry enthusiast, do not miss out on this book!
Coming October 6
Taxonomic Vignettes offers vibrant life stories intertwined with a deep exploration of friendship’s nature and evolution. With felicitous phrases and a comforting musical rhythm, the collection brims with serendipities and ironies.
Comprising primarily longer poems with shorter, lighter ones sprinkled throughout, this collection delves into crucial life conflicts and trajectories.
Readers will find themselves reading and rereading, drawn into the vivid lives, worlds, and language on the page; setting the book aside, only to be lured back a few hours later.
Ultimately, readers will return to the world invigorated and with a sharper eye for truth, possibility, and change.
From the Editor:
We hope that readers receive In Parentheses as a medium through which the evolution of human thought can be appreciated, nurtured and precipitated. It will present a dynamo of artistic expression, journalism, informal analysis of our daily world, entertainment of ideas considered lofty and criticism of today’s popular culture. The featured content does not follow any specific ideology except for that of intellectual expansion of the masses.
Founded in late 2011, In Parentheses prides itself upon analysis of the current condition of intelligence in the minds of these young people, and building a hypothesis for one looming question: what comes after Post-Modernism?
The idea for this magazine stems from a simple conversation regarding the aforementioned question, which drew out the need to identify our generation’s place in literary history.
To view the types of work we typically publish, preview or purchase our past issues.
Please join our community on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram at @inparenth.
By In Parentheses in Volume 10
48 pages, published 10/15/2025
in parentheses 
enter the discussion: