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

Ohel

By David Caplan

The need to be heard does not change,
the need to get close. Again we tear
our request, scatter it across the grave.

[…]

POETRY / Spring 2012

Only the Hebrew

By David Caplan

The sudden quiet of a room emptied of noise.
Only the Hebrew, a stone on his tongue.

[…]

POETRY / Spring 2012

Chassidus by Telephone

By David Caplan

On the train home, a Bluetooth in his ear,
he listens to a lecture on fear and love,
the four kinds, lower and higher.

[…]

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

[…]