“Norbert Krapf has a natural gift for bringing you into his world and making it your world as well, whenever he reads his poems. As a musician, it is always a joy to accompany his words, and just as much of a pleasure to sit quietly with any of his collections and join him in all the travels and places in the heart that his poetry takes us to. Songs in Sepia and Black and White is a collection that you will want to take with you wherever you travel, even if only to the next room. Norbert Krapf's poetry makes you want to celebrate your own family history, your own roots and the beauty that surrounds us all. ”
— David Amram, composer, multi-instrumentalist, author
“Songs in Sepia and Black and White is about the influences that make us; in these 101 poems Norbert Krapf explores the richness of his ancestry, from the memory of his parents to his abiding, formative love for Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Bob Dylan and other figures. The lyrics are elegant and spare, meditative and melodic, reminding us of the ancient intertwinement of poetry and song. A book to treasure—and a book that confirms Krapf's status as one of America's finest living poets. ”
— Benjamin Hedin, editor of Studio A: The Bob Dylan Reader
“Section III of this volume features under the title "Practically with the Band" a cycle that pays tribute to the great Midwestern singer-songwriter Bob Dylan who provides a model for reuniting poetry and music. The book title for the entire collection very appropriately reflects all three artistic genres of this volume: music, pictorial art (photography), and language as the medium of poetry.”
— Gert Niers, poet and critic
“A collaboration born of a shared love of music, photography, poetry, and Indiana, Fields’s photos are evocative imaginings of Norbert Krapf’s poems, which pay tribute to poets from Homer and Virgil to Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Wendell Berry, and to singer-songwriters such as Woody Guthrie, John Lennon, and Bob Dylan.”
“Pursuing a tri-fold creative concept that unites poetry, art in the form of photography, and music is certainly not a light challenge. Norbert Krapf has mastered it with remarkable virtuosity and once again reinforced his reputation as the pre-eminent German-American poet of the English language. ”
— Yearbook of German-American Studies
“Some of Krapf’s poetry is breathtakingly moving. Most of it is very insightful. . . . The way he joins history and emotion is wonderful. You feel a connection to his heritage, as though you were walking through the woods with his father or being affronted as well by changes in a place you thought you knew.
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— Englewood Review of Books