David Cooper, Writer, Translator, Trophy Husband

I'm a a poet, translator, book reviewer, journalist, & Shoshana Cooper's trophy husband. Download my two poetry collections from my website and buy my translation of Rachel Eshed's Little Promises. Also see my website, my Live Journal, my blogs on posterous, wordpress, and blogspot, my Facebook profile, my professional Facebook page, my Twitter profile, and my Friendfeed; see my Google profile for a more comprehensive list of my web 2.0 websites.

My translation of Israeli poet Rachel Eshed's book Little Promises is published in a bilingual edition by Mayapple Press. In its Hebrew original, this collection of intense erotic poetry won the 1992 AKUM prize in Israel. Novelist Tsipi Keller says, "It is hard to speak of Rachel Eshed's poetry without mentioning 'fire' : her poems virtually burn on the page, and David Cooper's renditions not only do justice to the original but magnify its richness." I am the author of two poetry collections, "Glued To The Sky" and "JFK: Lines of Fire" (Burlington VT: PulpBits, 2003). PulpBits went out of business in March 2007. Read these ebooks online at BookRix or download them on my website. My co-author and I are writing I Am My Beloved's, a collection of interviews and photographs of Jewish-American couples that explores the intersection of each couple's identities as a couple and as Jews and will reflect the diversity of the Jewish-American community. I cover the NY Jewish Culture beat for Examiner.com, review books for New York Journal of Books, and have taught history, poetry, and writing on the middle school, high school, and college levels.

My interests include Poetry, Literary Fiction, Modern Art, Jazz, Art House and foreign Cinema, Sex, Judaism, History, and Liberal Politics. I'm married to absract painter Shoshana Cooper, and we share our home with Sasson, a Peterbald cat. My Jewish identity is very strong, and on most Saturday mornings and early afternoons you would probably find Shoshana and me at our local synagogue , Park Slope Jewish Center. For those familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator I am an INFP or maybe an XNFP since the I is not very pronounced. I have non-hyperactive ADD ( the quiet version) and am fairly even tempered.

In addition to non-hyperactive ADD I also have allergies, asthma, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, primary lower limb lymphedema, and am a prostate cancer survivor. Lymphedema occurs when the lymphatic system is unable to adequately drain lymph fluid from an affected and thus swollen limb. I control my condition by performing a time consuming maintenance regimen which includes keeping to a low fat, very low sodium diet, sleeping in a soft cast with velcro straps that I can tighten to the correct degree of compression, wearing thigh high compression stockings in the daytime, showering in the evening before putting on the cast, performing a form of gentle self- massage to open the lymph vessels, prescribed breathing and floor exercises wearing the cast before going to bed at night, and repeating the exercises in the morning. I usually eat breakfast before exercising--it's well into the morning before I can actually start my day. Performing the evening part of the regimen precludes going out at night and has curtailed our social life somewhat.

Shoshana and I both look forward to the day a decade from now when she can retire from her day job, leave its stresses behind, and be a full time artist. I also look forward to the day when medical science finds cures for my various chronic ailments, especially lymphedema.