โIn these 101 poems Norbert Krapf explores the richness of his ancestry . . . a book that confirms Krapfโs status as one of Americaโs finest living poets.โ โBenjamin Hedin, author of Under the Spell
A collaboration born of a shared love of music, photography, poetry, and Indiana, this book celebrates the history, literature, and art that informs the present and shapes our identity. Richard Fieldsโs black and white photos are evocative imaginings of Norbert Krapfโs poems, visual metaphors that extend and deepen their vision. Krapfโs poems pay tribute to poets from Homer and Virgil to Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Wendell Berry, and to singer-songwriters such as Woody Guthrie and John Lennon. They also explore the poetโs German heritage, question ethnic prejudice and social conflict, and praise the natural world. The book includes a cycle of 15 poems about Bob Dylan; a public poem written in response to 9/11, โPrayer to Walt Whitman at Ground Zeroโ; โBack Home,โ a poem reproduced in a stained glass panel at the Indianapolis airport; and ruminations on the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, โQuestions on a Wall.โ
โPursuing a tri-fold creative concept that unites poetry, art in the form of photography, and music is certainly not a light challenge. Norbert Krapf has mastered it with remarkable virtuosity and once again reinforced his reputation as the pre-eminent German-American poet of the English language.โ โYearbook of German-American Studies
โSome of Krapfโs poetry is breathtakingly moving. Most of it is very insightful . . . The way he joins history and emotion is wonderful.โ โEnglewood Review of Books