David Caplan

Biography

David Caplan is the author of four books of poetry criticism and poetry, most recently Rhyme’s Challenge: Hip Hop, Poetry, and Contemporary Rhyming Culture (Oxford, 2014). The Charles M. Weis Chair in English at Ohio Wesleyan University, he serves as a contributing editor to VQR and received the Emily Clark Balch Prize for Poetry.

See Work

POETRY

Causeway

By David Caplan
POETRY / Fall 2013

Fisherman’s Beach

By David Caplan

No tide pools, no couples on the beach
where my parents met,

only whitecaps bowing and lifting,
until each blurs into itself.

[…]

POETRY

Poetry Poster #7: David Caplan

By David Caplan

This week’s poem, “God Knows English” by David Caplan, is complemented by a photograph by Noah Rabinowitz. The poem and photo are part of a series by Caplan called “Observances,” which appeared in our Spring 2012 issue on the state of...

POETRY / Spring 2012

The Mistake

By David Caplan

No mirrors, not even above the sink,
only the study hall’s glass doors
repeating their mistake,

[…]

POETRY / Spring 2012

Bris Milah

By David Caplan

Across Eastern Parkway the camera
recognized his walk,
neither absent-minded nor harried.

[…]

POETRY / Spring 2012

Bound

By David Caplan

Like scribes, they lean closer, watching
the old men he blessed for long life stand and listen.

[…]

POETRY / Spring 2012

After

By David Caplan

Each morning I skim the books they study,
a few minutes to remember that anger

[…]

 

POETRY / Spring 2012

Alien Fire

By David Caplan

Late Saturday afternoon, late winter,
they sway and clap, not wanting

to let the chorus go, and when their teacher asks,
What are you, dead?

[…]

POETRY / Spring 2012

Into My Garden

By David Caplan

As if new Jersey were Babylon, an Argentine
and an Israeli argue in Aramaic, Styrofoam cups
of instant coffee warm in their hands,

[…]

ESSAYS / Spring 2012

American Poetry and Poetry Criticism Now

By David Caplan

The American poetry scene has not gone back to the days of the midcentury generation—nor should it. It also largely avoids the least attractive development that claimed the intervening years, when the ancient quarrel between philosophy and...