David Caplan

David Caplan is a Professor and the Daisy Deane Frensley Chair in English Literature at Southern Methodist University (SMU), serving as Director of Graduate Studies ad interim. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia and an M.F.A. from the University of Florida. His research focuses on poetry, poetics, and American literature, with global engagement through presentations and translations into French and Urdu.

Caplan leads SMU Project Poëtica, fostering poetry initiatives including the biennial SMU Symposium on Poetic Form and book series with Bridwell Press. His current projects include God Loves Poetry: Contemporary American Poetry and Religion (Cambridge UP) and a poetry collection North Shore (Ben Yehuda Press).

Honors include the Emily Clark Balch Prize for Poetry, Ohio Arts Council’s Individual Excellence Award, and two Fulbright Lectureships at the University of Liège. He contributes to Pleiades and Virginia Quarterly Review, and collaborates with international institutions like the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Poétique Appliquée and the University of Haifa.

His work bridges creative writing and scholarly critique, emphasizing interdisciplinary dialogue in poetry studies.