Garrett Caples

Who is Garrett Caples?

Garrett Caples is an American poet. Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1972, he currently lives in Oakland. An editor at City Lights Books, Caples curates the new American poetry series, City Lights Spotlight. He also writes on hip hop, literature, and painting for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and has written fiction on unusual sexual practices, like omorashi.

As a hip hop journalist, Caples has been the first write on various Bay Area rappers, including J Stalin, D-Lo, Eddi Projex, Traxamillion, Droop-E, and Shady Nate. He's also written cover stories on more established stars like E-40, Mac Dre, Mistah FAB, Husalah, and The Jacka. Significantly, his interview with Shock-G of Digital Underground announced the end of that classic hip hop crew.

Caples is the author of The Garrett Caples Reader, er, um, The Philistine's Guide to Hip Hop, and Complications. In 2006, Narrow house Recordings released a cd of Caples reading his poems with lo-fi musical accompaniment called Surrealism's Bad Rap. He is also the editor of Pocket Poets Number 60, When I Was a Poet, by David Meltzer and Number 59, Tau by Philip Lamantia & Journey to the End by John Hoffman.