If you prefer that your comments not become a part of this Guestbook, please state this clearly. All comments may be sent by clicking on nkrapf@indy.rr.com and typing as much as you wish.

I recently stumbled across your name and a website article about your poetry, in which you described a Klara Krapf who perished in the Holocaust. My great-grandmother, Theresia Krapf, had a sister, Klara Krapf, who too perished in the Holocaust, and all of whose siblings emigrated to the US. Klara's father was a Rabbi in Würzburg, Germany, Rabbi Wilhelm [Wolf] Meyer Krapf. I noted from your article that the name Krapf was given to a "Meier" family. Could there be some connections between us?

Deborah Lipman Cochelin
Seattle, WA

12 Dec. 2002

Thanks so much for forwarding on these [Klara Krapf] materials today so that I could get a flavor of them. Brian [Krapf, a cousin of DC who lives in Savannah, GA] sent me the ID earlier, and I think I was so focused on work that I numbed myself to it. Tonight, I have had a chance to "settle in" a bit, and the tears are coming to my eyes as I see the photo [of Klara] again with the dates and the documents. I always knew somewhere in my heart that I must have had relatives who perished in the Holocaust. However, this is the first time in my life I have ever had a name and a face.

I grew up with children whose parents were Holocaust survivors, and knew about the camps, and saw the tatoos and heard the stories of people who survived the medical experiments. If you are a fan of Pat Conroy's works, and have ever read "Beach Music," the introduction to the book references his inspiration for writing the book, a woman with whom I grew up whose parents survived the camps. They ended up in Charleston, my home town, only as the result of someone knowing someone who lived in America who happened to live in Charleston. They arrived in New York on a Thanksgiving day, and didn't even know what Thanksgiving was, and by the next day were in Charleston. Some of their children still live there. Bottom line is now that this is hitting home for me the first time in my life. And, just as an aside, on a more pleasant note, the beach referenced in the book, Sullivan's Island, is the beach on which I grew up.

Deborah Lipman Cochelin
Seattle, WA

16 Dec. 2002

Norbert Krapf's new collection illustrates, again, the "Master Builder" poet he is, from foundation to conclusion in a fashion and with materials that so embrace the particular landscape he has chosen to site a poem. The poems are evocative and so fresh and perceptive they attained a spiritual foothold within this reader. It was such a pleasure to read Looking for God's Country. One could write at some length about individual poems, but here one wishes to cite, reverentially, the stunning Epilogue, in and of itself worth "the price of admission."

Saul Bennett
Woodstock, NY

23 May 2005

I've spent the last forty years trying to explain to my "outside world" friends just what it was like growing up in Jasper. You have pegged every moment, brought back memories that should never have been forgotten. Your writing is very tender and I've had a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. But as I read "The Labor Day Boxes" I giggled. I have told this story about the Labor Day boxes many times and absolutely no one believes it. I think it must be a Jasper thing. I remember some of the older kids on my W. 5th St block, Buddy Schiller and some of the Birge kids built entire city blocks with multiple-story buildings and dragged them down to the County Courthouse Square, and then everything was set on fire after we all assembled. I guess some of these peculiar entertainments have gone by the wayside.

I thank you for being the voice of Southern Indiana. It makes me evermore proud to be from The Country I Come From... I bought more of your books from Amazon and will spread them among my friends.

Ann Wallace Nichols
Atlanta, GA

9 May 2005

How did the reading [at C.W. Post] go? I did get a chance to buy your latest book about a month ago. I wish I could've heard some of it read, especially the poem "Dark and Deep," my favorite in that book. One particular line from that poem really touched me, because it goes down to the core of my beliefs: "It was / the thrill of not knowing where / he was going or what might come / that gave a slight bounce to his step..." I think too many times people, including myself, become so concerned about the future and everything that must take place, that they forget about enjoying the moment, enjoying the fact that the future is uncertain and in a sense everything is possible. Perhaps that wasn't your intention when you wrote that poem, but I'm truly happy you were able to bring forth that idea, even if only to my eyes.

Shakira Acosta
New Hyde Park, Long Island

19 April 2005

Norb, it was such a treat having you here, at St. Joseph's College and the Prairie Arts Council, and generous of you to share the spotlight with Becky and James, our student writers. I like so many poems in God's Country - especially the "Dark and Deep" one and its companion across the page, "What I Found in the Woods." The opening is exactly what I remember in that long past time when I went squirrel hunting by myself and would hear voices echoing around the hills above the Wabash River. Come back whenever you can.

Charles Kerlin
Rensselaer, In.

7 April 2005

The titles of Norb Krapf's books tell you that he is a poet of place. Peter Hessler in River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, a memoir about his experience as a Peace Corps volunteer college English teacher, recalled that to the Chinese, the place makes the people. As an American, Hessler thought that people make the place. Actually both processes constitute the dynamics of place, the place offering certain possibilities like hard wood trees and the people offering their talents for turning hard wood into furniture. Norb's poetry captures both dynamics, the potential as well as the limitations of a milieu and the strengths and weaknesses of those who call a given place home.

John Groppe
Rensselaer, IN

April 5, 2005

I picked up Blue-Eyed Grass and began with a little Reimenschneider and Dürer. I've seen that kind of poetry in your other work, so I began devouring the dust jacket blurbs. Boy, the front flap by Martin Greenberg really got to me, so I looked at the table of contents. I saw what he was talking about, your coming to grips with the whole negative side of German history, which ... I had to deal with as well.

So anyway, I turned to the back section and began. I often let out vocal cries and had to slam the book on my finger. Then I'd open it and read another poem, and sometimes the book actually shook like it was under its own Ouigi-board type power. I was completely overcome. The Oven with Daniel. His simple 9-year old comment. Elizabeth's inability to enter. The "spa city in the East" and the conditions there. The track at the Würzburg station. The meeting of Michael and Meir, and their goodbye, and the "schön für Kinder" of your friend, and the way your inquiries were met in the ghetto, the Judenhof, in Klara's hometown of Wonfurt, by the evasions and lies. Oh boy.

You are a hero of the highest kind because you could have toed the line on the German side of the history. Your status and sales would have been both enhanced and desecrated in one stroke. You could have chosen never to deal with the Question and you would have been a segment artist forever. Embracing the whole of the History has confirmed what always was: You write simple things very, very well, and that is the essence of elegance.You do that and let the chips fall where they fall. You do what is right. You do what hurts, if necessary. It's like the "Skinning the Rabbit" in Somewhere in Southern Indiana, but on a cosmic scale.

James Peter Louviere
New Iberia, Louisiana

23 March 2005

I can't remember when I've enjoyed a volume of verse so, affirming what Philip Larkin insists, how in enduring poetry - as in yours - "Readability is credibility," your poems in Looking for God's Country always tuning-fork true, the facile ease of saying within a prayerlike, hushed, chapel-tone register, "The time has come / to come home, Mother. / I can hear your quiet voice / sing these words, / and the tune is right." Always just right, and always within the heart's hearing and yearning.

And such range, such an embrace of time and words and people: "I say open the gates, let people walk toward one another.... Let poems and songs break down the walls.... Let this pure language flow." And always, your very own Vestigia Dei, these very "traces and shadows of God," even under"Moon Shadows," even "...on my father's workbench, / in the furnace room of the basement...."

And like another Far Wanderer, our Dante, you too find a place for the heart to rest, teach us that there is indeed a "God's Country," where we find, along with the truth of ourselves, the little that all is: just "to hear / the turtlecove coo / in the pines at dusk" There can't be more than this! That Norbert Krapf voice I've heard for 25 years sings [in this book] for all of us.

Vince Clemente
Sag Harbor, Long Island

17 March 2005

My name is Jerry Newton and even though I have lived in NYC for the past 26 years I hail from Jasper, Indiana. My father was Jack Newton and my mother is Rose Marie (Gramelspacher) Newton. I was home for the holidays and stopped by the Dubois County Museum (the old Gramelspacher House) and picked up some of your books and just wanted you to know how much I enjoyed them. I got my BA in History from Indiana University and have always loved reading about the early German settlers in southern Indiana. Just wanted to let you know that your books were very enjoyable and I hope you continue writing about our great heritage.

Jerry Newton
New York City

January 14, 2004

I honestly had not heard of you until last fall when I came across your latest book while at Barnes & Noble in Indianapolis. The cover caught my eye, as I am a lover of autumn. I knew the picture had to be of somewhere in my beloved Indiana. After I started paging through it, I saw a side of poetry I hadn't experienced before. To be honest, I never was into poetry that much; I didn't understand much of what poetry I had read up to that point, let alone know how to write it myself. Reading your words was like opening a window, not only one leading to your soul, seeing where you came from, but also to my own soul, realizing, too, where I have been, and possibly where I am going. I have a German/Cherokee background, and it was refreshing to read of other lives living similar situations and feeling likewise emotions.

I was very impressed with your style -- I like to call it "intricate simplicity," if you will; an oxymoronic description of emotions stemming not only from a sense of place but a true sense of self, and others' sense of self. I plan to dive into more of your works and gain a further appreciation for your poetry and prose...for what I now consider one of the finer things in life. Thank you for your descriptions: picturesque, timely, appropriate, applicable, and memory-inspiring. They also inspire me to make more time for myself to write more of what I feel is buried deep inside me, from the places where I've been to the places where I may be going. You not only possess a sense of place and self, but are truly a writer who commands a sense of respect. I shall be so lucky to even come close to expressing myself in the same manner -- giving much but not excessively, affecting another in a way that they have not felt imposed upon but rather that they, too, have "been there, done that."

Cheryl Soden Moreland
Indianapolis, Indiana

November 17, 2003

Dear Norb,
Last night I totally treated my soul by finally logging on to your website. After reading comments from so many people that I am a part of and they a part of me, I finally sat down and read The Country I Come From. It is heart wrenching. I have always known the feelings that come over me on the drive from Louisville to Jasper, but never realized the significance is the same to others.

Still today my inner being is shocked by "Return to a Mighty Fortress." I walked through that whole evening with you, Jack, and Jeff. I see you driving out of the Skyline area, down Ritter's hill, sneaking into the church, all 3 sheets to the wind, and Jeff dramatically opening the lid to the console, then with a flourish playing the melodies we will forever have ingrained . I regret that I was not there to share this great adventure. Of course, Mick and I feel honored to have our very own poem in the book. Thank you for holding on to our roots for us. I am amazed at how you hear and feel who you are.

Mary Ellen Stenftenagel
Fort Worth, Texas

December 3, 2002

The Country I Come From arrived yesterday and it overturned my plans for the day. I stopped and read it before dinner, after, and again before bed. Your joy and sorrow mixing with mine. Thank you!
Mary Ann Allison
Brooklyn

October 20, 2002

Just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed The Country I Come From. I especially enjoyed The Labor Day Boxes (no one we know out here has ever heard of such a thing) and Saturday Night at the Calumet (it was so unbelievably accurate). I also loved the ones about your mother------they are beautiful.
Joyce Burger Bohnert
Arizona

September 25, 2002

I think that The Country I Come From contains some of your very best poetry. As you can imagine, I go for the nature poems most of all, for those texts where you see yourself at a distance (of memory) and let the language, the sound, the imagery, do its own work to make the reader, me, feel corresponding emotions, create images in my mind. Also I have the feeling that you have put exceptionally hard work into the formal polish of the poems in this book: line cuts, sound play, shorter and longer stanza units and so forth. I find echoes of quite a bit of twentieth-century American poetry in these texts and I like it because it creates a very fruitful tension between the rural, regional subject and the modernist approach. I might use a few of the texts in my upcoming seminar on Multiculturalism because they present something most of our students don't know anything about: the German presence in America.

Helmbrecht Breinig
Director, American Studies
University of Erlangen

September 25, 2002

It was great hearing you share your thoughts about your poems in The Country I Come From at the Dubois County Museum in Jasper. Hearing them out loud in your voice just makes the words leap & jump, cause sadness, happiness and especially warmth from within of memories of years gone by. I never realized that you had the opportunities of so many down-home farm experiences. I thought I was one of the few kids living in town that got to spend weeks 'down home on the farm.'

One interesting thing about the thoughts and insights in your writings is that they include both Jim's and my childhood and therefore the lives of both our parents also. So many of your poems are of your own deep personal feelings that you share with everyone! Many of these perplexing feelings are the same that most of us have experienced but are never able to share with anyone. Your love and admiration for your parents, brothers, sisters, wife, children and friends shine through but also your inadequacies, shyness, and questions of life are forever present. The more I read your poems, the more I am able to understand myself!"

Marilyn Hass Gutgsell
Colorado

August 31, 2002

It's a beautiful book, a great range of memory and connection, many layered and reaching in unexpected ways, narrative at times, lyric at others. The effect is almost choral in places.

Robert Morgan
Cornell University

August 9, 2002

Just wanted to let you know I finished your book, The Country I Come From, and I enjoyed it tremendously! You have a wonderful gift and I am happy that I know someone who can put into words life's experiences and say it in such a moving, enjoyable way! When I read your poems, I feel like I am right there wherever it is you are writing about.
Nancy Teder
Jasper, IN

August 28, 2002

Norb,
Congratulations on the publication of The Country I Come From. I just wanted to tell you again how much Rene and I enjoyed your recent reading at the Walt Whitman House. That was one of the larger crowds I've seen for a reading in quite some time; your flock is expanding. I mentioned to Rene during the reading that as a student of yours, I found your passion and love of poetry infectious and inspiring. In listening to your words - some 15 years after my days in your classroom - it seems that your appreciation for poetry has only gotten stronger over time. Hearing your perspective reminds me of the importance of poetry in my own life - something that inexplicably escapes me periodically as the years slip by and the weight of everyday presses down. It is a true gift that you possess; thank you for making it your lifetime commitment to sharing it with others.
Ed Dumas
New York

August 2, 2002 10:18 AM

Hi Norb!--as you see i am visiting your website and i am eagerly awaiting the arrival of your new book!--i guess we've known each other for 25 years now!--i have to read all of the published work because i know i am behind and your output is immense!--i can say i knew you WHEN!--this is such a good website and i am about to start browsing--maybe order another book or two...
Holly
Connecticut

14 August 2001 9:41 AM

Dear Norbert, not for the first time I've been catching up with you on your impressive website.... Thanks for your recent news that Archer Books will be bringing out a new collection.... You deserve readers by the thousands, old friends.
Bill Heyen

February 21, 2001 8:21 AM

Norbert, Your website is wonderful. So many positive comments given you by devoted guests. You have worked hard and your fruit is coming forth. I bought your Long Island book at the Flower Stall here in Jasper. This book is a great addition to your many works. I keep going back and rereading. The poems speak of you and connections familiar to both of us. What a treasure you have given us all!
Warm regards,
Sue Klein
Jasper, Indiana

17 Dec. 2000 11.23 a.m.

I found your site through the Newsday article (section G, Long Island Life) of 10/1/00. I have lived 65 years on Long Island, and all my years on the LIE I never saw its blurred beauty you captured so well. I have been motivated to keep writing poetry. Thank you.
Tom
Long Island

3 Oct. 2000 8:35 p.m

Dear Norbert,
I just finished reading your newest book, Bittersweet Along the Expressway: Poems of Long Island, and I am so touched by your ability to turn ordinary things and events of life into the most extraordinary with your words! Because I know you, your family, and your home, your poems are especially dear to my heart. The images you evoke of Long Island are very familiar ones for me as well. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to visit my sorely-missed hometown whenever I want to through your poems.
Love,
Carolyn
Penn State University

18 August, 2000

I greatly enjoyed meeting you and hearing you at the Humboldt-Uni tonight. After I finished working, I began reading your book "Blue-Eyed Grass: Poems of Germany" on the U-bahn, and was again so deeply touched by your work. You address so utterly honestly and movingly issues that are very close to my own heart. I, too, have lifelong ties to this country, but since I live here now, I have lost a bit of my sense of wonder and objectivity. Experiencing it through your eyes and words is already reawakening things in my own mind and heart. I thank you for this.
I will also be ordering some extra copies of your book for gifts for some friends of mine as well as for my mother, all of whom will react as I am reacting! You really made me re-experience Freiburg tonight---one of my very favorite places.
Best wishes, Carol Rodland
Berlin

18 June 2000

Dear Norb,
Congrats on your achievement award, but I hope you have lots of lifetime to continue to keep us entertained with your writings and poetry. We are anxiously awaiting your next publication. Sounds terrrific. Have a great summer.
Jim and Lee Ann Landrum

23 May, 2000 3:59 PM

Norbert, You can thank my sister, Beverly, for introducing me to you. HA! I graduated 1962 from Jasper High School. She sent me your book re So. Indiana poems and enjoyed it a lot. We looked you up in the yearbook and remembered your face. I am so glad to see that the word about the Jasper community is out. It is indeed a unique place and Germany would be proud. Congratulations in all your successes...
Maxine Weigel Hurley, Anderson, IN

23 May, 2000 3:01 PM

Dear Norbert,
I finally found your site, and am enjoying every moment. You have truly brought me home to southern Indiana. Wth best wishes,
Beverly Weigel Castelli; born and raised in Jasper, In

22 May, 2000 8:39 PM

Congratulations. You and Catherine and Daniel look great. I assume Elizabeth was on one of her fabulous tours when you received the TAS Award. Good luck on your Germany readings. Looking forward to your new collection.
Mariano.

21 May, 2000 9:58 PM

Norb:
I remember reading your work in MEASURE more than thirty five years ago. I was impressed then as I am impressed now. Stay with it and I shall be a visitor again -- I lived in Germany for a couple of years as a grad student (Heidelberg to Muenchen) but my German is really non - existent now (classes were in English). Seeing Jim Muth's comments also brought back some memories of long ago Indiana -- Thanks for the address in Contact
Best Wishes
Jerry Buszta
My 10 year old (who is at my shoulder right now) also says hello!

20 May, 2000 7:53 PM

You've given another extraordinary gift to me, my daughter and some young poets around me. I have stayed close to you in my way, reading all, always in amazement at the depth of your gifts and your generosity. Wonderful life's work. I will come to the site often as I have come to your work.
James Muth
Berea, Ohio

15 May, 2000 7:35 PM EDT

Hi! Best of luck with your website. This is the first time that I have seen it: nice pictures that do not take very long to load.
Edmund Miller
Flushing, New York

4/07/2000 20:46 pm EDT

Dear Norbert,
Thoroughly enjoyed this exquisite site. Ever since the task of deciphering and translating the Latin letters of Rev. Joseph Kundek for your wonderful book, Finding The Grain, the essence of that incredible pioneer -- and the places and their history his letters elucidate -- together with the composite result of your own labor of love have continued to resonate within me. Thank you for that abiding experience.
Best regards,
Timothy Flannery, NYC

1/20/2000 12:26 pm EDT

Norb,
We are thoroughly enjoying your website. We particularly like the audio readings, and of course, the pictures! We will keep checking the site to see if anything new comes up.
Elfrieda and Leon Fleck
Jasper, IN

1/18/2000 8:56 pm EDT

I was born in East Prussia, Germany before WW II started. I am very impressed with your poems about Germany. They almost make me homesick.
Sincerely,
Hiltrud Maria (Masuch) Webber
Frohe Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch! :-)

12/18/1999 3:56 pm EDT

Kudos!!!
Lieber Norbert!
Brad und ich sind aufs höchste beeindruckt vom Format und der Qualität Deines Werkes!
Herzlichen Glückwunsch!
Brad und Ingeborg Miller

12/7/1999 11:06 pm EDT

We love his work. Still talk about the chance meeting in the Jasper Library a few years ago.
Jim and Lee Ann Thacker Landrum, his Missouri Cousins.

12/6/1999 7:49 pm EDT

A colleague just gave me your URL. I am very intrigued. A special interest of mine, and also my heritage, is 19th century German American immigration and I have already assembled a fair amount of documentation, as well as acquiring fluency in the language of my forefathers, wenigstens die Hochsprache.

11/24/1999 10:13 pm EDT

So Norb! You have achieved an exemplary method of connecting with your audience, whether they know it or not! Very delightful and refreshing in the midst of late semester academic workings.
Bill Roba
Scott Community College
Bettendorf, Iowa

11/19/1999 8:20 pm EDT

Few can forge poetry from the geography of their memory. You have.
Regards from the desert.
Mariano

11/9/1999 9:30 pm EDT

I did enjoy everything on the site. It was a nice break coming home and looking at part of it. I have sent it to my friends here at Indiana State, and the things they have observed have been nice according to their comments.
Maria Feltner
Music Major
Indiana State University

10/22/1999 9:30 pm EDT

What a wonderful idea! Lookin' good, too. I can't wait to read Blue-Eyed Grass. I am particularly taken with yet another connector in our work: the quote, "Relationships run deeper than blood." As you know, the Poetry Repertory Theatre's next endeavor will be about relationships.
Susan Melchior, Director
Poetry Repertory Theatre

10/18/1999 10:36 am EDT

Have enjoyed your books so much. Hope your new web page will encourage others to read your works.
Joan Griffis
Genealogy Columnist

10/15/1999 11:36 am EDT

Mr. Poet and Herr Webmaster:
There is only one thing missing in this site: Classical Eros. We therefore recommend that you include some of the poet's luscious Helga Poems, as represented by five on the Ixion of England site. With this addition, you will have achieved completion.
Signed,
Lover of All Things Full and Complete

10/14/1999 7:36 am EDT

Norbert -- I was really impressed with the effect of the 'scenery.' Suddenly I saw you in the poems in the place you wrote about -- it added a completely different dimension because environment is so important in your poems. Many congratulations on this site -- it is really wonderful!!
Karen
University of Tel Aviv

10/12/1999 6:16 am EDT

I've enjoyed surfing the new website and it will be great keeping up with you this way!
Karen Dorrell,
WITZ Radio, Jasper IN

10/11/1999 4:16 pm EDT

Congratulations Norb on this website. I am pleased to enter my name in the guestbook and wish you many other visitors.
Margaret Hallissy
Professor of English
Long Island University / C.W. Post Campus

10/11/1999 6:24 pm EDT

Very impressive, technologically and content.
Jerry Glenn
University of Cinncinnati

10/11/1999 6:44 am EDT

Fred and I just marveled at the wonder of hearing your poem about first contact read, first by you in English, and then by Helmut [Haberkamm] auf Deutsch. A really nicely done website, and the audio parts are an inspiration.
Kathy Hill-Miller and Fred Miller

10/10/1999 12:34 pm EDT

Larry and I are here in my office reading your poems... Great website and beautiful poems. Larry and Beth Gray.

10/09/1999 6:52 pm EDT

A perfectly beautiful website! I've only had time for a cursory visit, but shall do more when time permits. I especially love the illustrations and design - as a painter of flowers, I liked the choice of prints and their arrangement. Also the Durer woodcut - but everything is lovely. Norbert, it's all very impressive when you see the whole life-work in one place.
Zelda Austen,
Professor Emerita, English Dept., Long Island University.

9/27/1999 5:17 pm EDT

Very nice site!

9/21/1999 6:52 pm EDT

Hello,
I am a German friend visiting Roslyn Heights in gusts and driving rain. I just browsed through Norbert Krapf's website and I must say I am thoroughly impressed to see and hear so many delightful texts and details. Congratulations on your website! May many people profit from this resourceful and rewarding address! Best wishes,
Helmut Haberkamm from Erlangen, Franconia.

9/16/1999 1:30 pm EDT

Hello Norbert! My name is Michael Koondel (7th grade English teacher at M.M.S.) and I just wanted you to know that I really enjoyed your web page. After your poetry reading at Barnes & Noble last year, I was instantly a fan. It's really wonderful that you have published your work on the Internet and I look forward to any additions.

9/9/1999 4:38 pm EDT

Love your site - love your poems.

8/21/1999 1:06 pm EDT