New Collection of Poems by C.W. Post’s Poet Laureate

May 20, 2005 - Looking for God’s Country, Norbert Krapf’s new collection of 85 poems set in Indiana and Germany, was recently released by Time Being Books. The new collection, which explores the fact of mortality as central to life, is a sequel to The Country I Come From (2002), a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Dr. Krapf, the Poet Laureate at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, is a nationally regarded author of 12 volumes of poetry. He taught as an English professor at C.W. Post for 34 years.

The new collection is divided into four sections. The new poems describe youthful rites of passage in which death is seen as part of life; follows German immigrants back to Dr. Krapf’s ancestral Franconia, the setting of 26 poems inspired by the photographs of Andreas Riedel; moves into settings connected with World War II and a reunited Germany; and returns to the poet’s origins and reflections on mortality set in his native southern Indiana. As in Dr. Krapf’s earlier work, family history, nature, and personal relationships, in connection with a series of place and origins, provide the subject matter for many of the poems.

Poet and critic Robert Philips has said of the new collection, “Never easy or facile, [Krapf’s] poems embrace not only this world, but the world beyond this world; not only the New World, but the Old World.”

Native American writer Joseph Bruchac, who believes Looking for God’s Country may be Krapf’s best collection, says “Norbert Krapf… has always spoken eloquently, but without pretension, of spirit and home in his poems.”

Section II, "Franconian Faces and Fields," is a sequence of 26 poems inspired by black-and-white photographs by Andreas Riedel, of Franconian people engaged in daily activities on their farms and in their villages. A colored landscape by Riedel provides the book’s cover, and four of his black and white photographs are reproduced on the section title pages. Section III includes "Würzburg Sequence: After Gunter Ullrich," five poems inspired by colored etchings depicting the effects of World War II on the city that is the cultural and religious center of Krapf’s ancestral region. A colored etching by Gunter Ullrich served as the cover for Krapf’s 1997 collection, Blue-Eyed Grass: Poems of Germany.

The title of the book, which suggests a search not only for an earthly homeland, but also for the world beyond, is derived from a poem titled "God’s Country," which leads off the last section. The title poem concludes that "you will never feel lost / no matter how far you stray, // as long as you remember / where you came from / and never forget that to those / who came before you // where your family lives will / always remain God’s country." Another poem in the concluding section, "Coming into the Valley," describes a vision in which the author meets the spirits of his elders.

For more information on ordering “Looking for God’s County,” visit Dr. Krapf’s Web site at www. krapfpoetry.com or call (866) 840-4334.