C.W. Post Poet Laureate to Read from New Collection at Poetry Awards Night

February 18, 2005 - As part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, the C.W. Post Poetry Center will be holding the 39th annual Poetry Awards Night on Thursday, April 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the Great Hall. In honor of this festive occasion, Norbert Krapf, the C.W. Post Campus Poet Laureate, will read from his new book, "Looking for God's Country," as well as from some of the collection he wrote to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Campus.

Created in 1974, the Poetry Center is the longest-running literary center of its kind at any university in the metropolitan area. Poetry Awards Night is the gala event for the academic year.

"Looking for God's Country," which will be published in April by Time Being Books, is a collection of 85 poems set in Indiana and Germany. It explores the fact of mortality as central to life, and is a sequel to "The Country I Come From" (2002), a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

"It's an honor to be guest poet at this event", said Krapf who presided over it as director of the Poetry Center for 18 years. "I attended Poetry Awards Night for the first time in the spring of 1971, in my first year of teaching at Post."

Krapf is the first Poet Laureate in the history of the C.W. Post Campus. Parts of his duties include writing poems in honor of the C.W. Post Campus's 50th anniversary celebration, which started in September 2004. He also provides support for the Poetry Center and presents readings to the public both in the United States and abroad. He is the author or editor of 19 books, including 13 collections of his own poems. Winner of the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, he is Professor emeritus of English at Long Island University, where he taught for 34 years. He now lives in Indianapolis with his family.

The event is open to the public and is free of charge. For information, contact the C.W. Post Poetry Center at (516) 299-2391 or e-mail isaac.cates@liu.edu. For information about Dr. Krapf and his works, visit www.krapfpoetry.com. For information about the Poetry Center, visit http://www.cwpost.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/culture/poetry.html