Mike Cole was born (1948) and grew up in Fresno. He graduated from Roosevelt High School and Fresno State College. He has lived in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Yosemite National Park for most of the past 35 years. He taught high school English and Spanish at Yosemite High School until he retired in 2009.
From 1966 – 1971 Cole had the good fortune of attending Fresno State College during the time that Philip Levine, Peter Everwine, Robert Mezey, and C. G. Hanzlicek presided over a poetry renaissance there. He either made the acquaintance of or took poetry classes with a number of remarkable poets. Having been part of such a community of poets has given him a lifelong commitment to the art.
Cole has published poems in Antioch Review,Laurel Review, In the Grove, San Joaquin Review, Beyond Baroque, and others. He also appeared in the anthology Highway 99, published by Heyday Press.
