Cappelbaum is the alter ego of the late, obscure Jewish-American (and later Canadian) poet Stanley Cooperman who shot himself in his North Vancouver home on April 26, 1976, thereby freeing Cappelbaum from roaming the earth as a sort of postmodern Wandering Jew.
I first encountered Cappelbaum when I found a copy of Cannibals in the donation bin at the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library, where I used to volunteer circa 1998. I first used the purloined nomen in "Cappelbaum's Protest" in 2003. Since that time, I have been keeping the legend of the name alive in the following poems.
Speaking of afterlives, in 2014 (I learned this six years after the fact), Michael Curran republished a selection titled Cappelbaum's Lament & Other Poems. Cappelbaum dances on.
