poetry | David F. Cooper

Book review: Late Beauty: Poems by Tuvia Ruebner

November 1, 2018

“Readers who devoured In the Illuminated Dark will welcome the additional poems in Late Beauty, and for readers unacquainted with Ruebner’s poetry Late Beauty provides a portal.” — From my review of Late Beauty: Selected Poems of Tuvia Ruebner translated from the Hebrew by Lisa Katz and Shahar Bram in New York Journal of Books. […]

My poetry book Glued To The Sky is now an audiobook

May 11, 2016

My poetry book Glued To The Sky is now also an audiobook. Glued To The Sky includes both narrative and lyric poems concerning group identity and gender issues in a wide variety of forms. Glued To The Sky was published by PulpBits in 2003. Sadly, PulpBits went out of business in 2007. An ebook version of Glued […]

Book review: In the Illuminated Dark: Selected Poems of Tuvia Ruebner

July 2, 2014

"Anglophone readers (especially those who also read Hebrew) will find both this handsome book’s bilingual presentation of Ruebner’s selected poems, and his heart wrenching backstory described by translator Rachel Tzvia Back in her informative introduction and endnotes, compelling reading."

David Grossman conveys parental bereavement in Falling Out of Time

March 25, 2014

“As moving as are each of these expressions of grief the cumulative effect of Falling Out of Time‘s nearly 200 pages is even more powerful. It certainly conveys bereaved parents’ pain to readers who have not suffered that loss and may help some mourning parents work through their grief, though others may feel it reopens […]

JFK: Lines of Fire, a Verse Docu-drama

November 22, 2013

On 11/22/63 I was a 4th grader in PS 110 in Manhattan. That afternoon our lesson was interrupted by a radio broadcast over the PA system describing the shooting and eventually President Kennedy’s death. Only then did the principal or asst. principal announce early dismissal. On the door of my bedroom I had a poster […]

Book review: The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems

October 29, 2013

In my New York Journal of Books review I describe The Gorgeous Nothings as “. . . one gorgeous book . . . like attending a museum exhibition in the comfort of one’s own home.” For a comparison between Ms. Dickinson’s draft of a poem and the posthumously published version see an article that appeared in […]

Why We Are Truly a Nation by William Matthews : The Poetry Foundation

July 4, 2013

Why We Are Truly a Nation BY WILLIAM MATTHEWS Because we rage inside the old boundaries, like a young girl leaving the Church, scared of her parents. Because we all dream of saving the shaggy, dung-caked buffalo, shielding the herd with our bodies. Because grief unites us, like the locked antlers of moose who die […]