JFK: Lines of Fire

by David Cooper

JFK: Lines of Fire is a sequence of dramatic documentary vignettes culled from the literature concerning the assassination of President Kennedy. Many of these found poems are dramatic monologues in the voices of people who had information about the assassination and either failed to prevent it or lacked a context to understand such information until it was too late. These accounts share certain emotional undercurrents, the need to act balanced by a sense of resignation, the shock of recognition balanced by a callous bravado. Whether or not Oswald acted alone or was nuts, there was (is) a wider insane acceptance of violence that (through these dramatic voices) provides an emotional context to this event. In this sense the real subject of this book is our American vernacular and the ways these themes are expressed in our speech.

JFK: Lines of Fire were published by PulpBits in 2003; PulpBits went out of business in March 2007, but can be viewed and downloaded here or on the author's website davidfcooper.com

100 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

DAVID COOPER earned an MA in creative writing at The City College of CUNY where he won the Academy of American Poets Prize. His ebooks, Glued To The Sky and JFK: Lines of Fire were published by PulpBits in 2003; PulpBits went out of business in March 2007, but by clicking on their titles either here or on his website you can view and download free PDF files of these ebooks.

Cooper's poems and translations have appeared in numerous periodicals. He was a finalist in the 1999 Snake Nation Press book contest, has been a semi-finalist in several other national contests, and was nominated for a 2007 Pushcart Prize.

Glued To The Sky includes both narrative and lyric poems concerning group identity and gender issues in a wide variety of forms.

JFK: Lines of Fire is a sequence of dramatic documentary vignettes culled from the literature concerning the assassination of President Kennedy. Many of these found poems are dramatic monologues in the voices of people who had information about the assassination and either failed to prevent it or lacked a context to understand such information until it was too late. These accounts share certain emotional undercurrents, the need to act balanced by a sense of resignation, the shock of recognition balanced by a callous bravado. Whether or not Oswald acted alone or was nuts, there was (is) a wider insane acceptance of violence that (through these dramatic voices) provides an emotional context to this event. In this sense the real subject of this book is our American vernacular and the ways these themes are expressed in our speech.

Cooper's 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. His translation of one of the poems in Little Promises was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. 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."

He reviews books for New York Journal of Books, and is a voting member of the National Book Critics Circle.