Former Poet Laureate Norbert Krapf publishes essays

The Indiana Historical Society Press has released a new book about a famous Hoosier.

In nearly 30 essays, “Homecomings: A Writer's Memoir” tells the ongoing story of former Indiana Poet Laureate Norbert Krapf. The book details his experiences and development as a writer of poetry and prose that began after he moved from northern Indiana to the New York area in 1970, and poems started to come in January of 1971, and his eventual return to his native state.

Krapf, Indiana poet laureate from 2008 to 2010, was born in 1943 in Jasper, Indiana, a German-Catholic town in southern Indiana. He received his bachelor of arts degree in English from Saint Joseph College in 1965 and his MA and PhD in English from the University of Notre Dame. He taught at the C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University, where he directed the C. W. Post Poetry Center.

He has frequently contributed to Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History and has previously published a book with the Indiana Historical Society Press, "The Ripest Moments," a memoir of his youth in Jasper. 

“ 'Homecomings' is the record of a poet, teacher, and critic meditating with deep love and profound insight into the writers, the places, and the questions

Norbert Krapf

that have shaped his work. Essential reading for anyone familiar with Krapf’s poetry, it is also a book for those interested in how a poem works and how an artist chooses and maintains a life-long passion for craft and for the truth that art reveals,” says author Susan Neville.

“Not since Theodore Roethke has any poet handled so successfully as Norbert Krapf the subject of youth and adolescence,” says William Jay Smith, former U.S. Poet Laureate.

The book is $24.95 and can be purchased at the Indiana Historical Society, 450 W. Ohio St., Indianapolis, or by clicking here: https://shop.app/checkout/60786147547/co/dee1d875bcbc201218e9b2b0d2af3497/shoppay_login?checkout_queue_token=AgAuLpZhMVmSo9zAEFqHyKD8o3ljCHtlvt64RX4k8XLkDR7bhXeXhQBOwZ2PtchJUPxi0fiW6Sn4Ov5L6i31YV3BNlVFmTVSIDxeX7pJrp28KQm4JRcFFbUb3L-jGcf0fiOzdHeidN5qjO8WkOEW7QDUDb7Y0rYs7zABeSpZ7dtKOUfxeA%253D%253D&ew_m=f&key=a5a7c4489c07ef8cec187ed4fd3a70d4&redirect_source=direct_checkout_product&show_login=true&tracking_unique=c6886f2c-841a-4f28-9723-0547d9226b01&tracking_visit=4b666db3-f8d2-444e-950f-f488e4a26f69