Norbert Krapf near Tugendorf, Lower Franconia, where the
Krapf family lived until emigrating to the U.S. in 1846.

 

In half a lifetime of writing history and poetry about the Catholic communities of the Jasper [Indiana] area and their German antecedents, Krapf has shown a sense of place and ethnic identity that radiates out to universal brotherhood. In Blue-Eyed Grass, his most personal and yet his most magnanimous work, he reminds us of the all-American Walt Whitman, who remained "a part of all that I have met," and of Wendell Berry, who sings of his beloved Kentucky that he has seen the worst and best of humankind there. 
                                                                                                        -Dan Carpenter, The Indianapolis Star
 



The Cornelia St. Café, Greenwich Village, New York City
photo © Andreas Riedel

With its emphasis on the specificities of a place and its people, Krapf’s poetry has deep affinities with the local color tradition of American literature.  But like Kentucky poet Wendell Berry, Krapf’s forte is in recognizing the spiritual interaction between a people and their place.

                                                                        John Groppe, Sycamore Review
 

New prose memoir  The Ripest Moments: A Southern Indiana Childhood

Author Bio Interviews Reviews Invisible Presence Campus Meditations
Poems Prose Audio God's Country Bittersweet
Readings Awards   Country I Come From Christmas Card 2007
Ordering Guestbook Poetry Links    

New CD: Imagine - Indiana in Music and Words


Site Stats Webmaster