Catholic Boy Blues...Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS 
By TAHLIB

INDIANA---A&O Prize honoree for Literary Arts, Norbert Krapf recently shared the cover of his upcoming book of poetry, "Catholic Boy Blues." In the image, there is beauty, but also a haunting quality. "It was taken by the priest who abused me!" he explained. "I found it and remembered it in 1997 after my mother died and I had to go through all her things. There are four poems in the book that reflect on the photo and his possible motivation(s) in giving that photo to my parents." Creating and sharing art is a struggle. Facing painful memories, just as Krapf has struggled is a Genesis opportunity for new birth. More details are available at www.krapfpoetry.com.

Prolog: Angel of Power and Protection
—Sculpture, Bridge to Vatican City, Rome—

What happens when the Angel
falls asleep after the mother
and father who held the baby
have to walk back into their lives

and the boy walks out into
the world and a servant
of God touches him wrong
when the parents aren’t looking?

By the time he is ready to
cross the bridge to Vatican City
his feet will not move forward
but turn in the opposite direction.

It is decades before he
can talk to the old God
by finding his own sacred places
and a new language for praying.

This poem, inspired by a Denis Kelly photograph,

opens Catholic Boy Blues: A Poet’s Journey of Healing,

forthcoming April 2014 from Greystone Publishing,

© 2011 Norbert Krapf

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2013

Norbert & Katherine Krapf

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2013 A&O Prizes for Literary Arts: Norbert Krapf, Tasha Jones, and Bonnie Maurer

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

INDIANA---The board of Alpha & Omega Project for Contemporary Religious Arts are pleased to formally announce the 2013 honorees of the project's first Literary Arts prizes to: Norbert Krapf, Tasha Jones, and Bonnie Maurer. "These inaugural literary arts prizes celebrate three local poets who have responded to an internal challenge to explore the spiritual and religious," explained Gregory Disney-Britton, chair of Alpha Omega Arts. "By sharing new works of 100 lines or less, in a public setting, we hope to stimulate the interaction of ideas and spiritual thought." Nominations were sought this past spring, and the three honorees will perform their readings during the Spirit & Place Festival on Saturday, November 9 at 2:00 p.m. at Indiana Interchurch Center, 1100 W. 42nd Street, Indianapolis.

Since 2008, Alpha Omega Arts has been surveying members about the influence of Religious Art in the United States, and awarding the ALPHA OMEGA PRIZE.

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Meet Norbert Krapf, A&O Prize for Literary Arts Honoree for 2013

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

INDIANA---Norbert Krapf is one of the first three literary artist honorees to receive the A&O Prize; and on Saturday, November 9 at 2:00 p.m. he will be honored at Indiana Interchurch Center, 1100 W. 42nd Street in Indianapolis. Krapf is also an Indiana Poet Laureate; has recieved a Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis; and is author of the soon to be release book of poetry, "Catholic Boy Blues." A native of Indiana, he received his B.A.in English from St. Joseph’s College (Indiana); and later earned both his M.A. and Ph.D. in English from the University of Notre Dame with a concentration in American Poetry. Krapf is also emeritus professor of English at Long Island University, where he taught for 34 years and directed the C.W. Post Poetry Center.  In eleven full-length poetry collections, he explores his German-Catholic heritage. He is also an editor; the author of a prose memoir; music collaborator; and student of the blues.

Below are Norbert's answers to two questions about religious risk. You can thank Norbert, and the other artists taking a risk with religious imagination, by making a gift to the Alpha Omega Prize: Artist Fund via power2give.org. 

1. What is your experience with “risks” relating to religious experience.

The experience written about in Catholic Boy Blues, a collection of 135 poems scheduled for  2014 publication by Greystone Publishing, came about as a religious “risk” that did not involve a choice.

I was a victim-survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a priest, in a German-Catholic community in southern Indiana. That for twenty years after the abuse took place, I could rarely enter a church because of painful associations does not mean that I did not have an active spiritual life during that period. In many ways, the poems I wrote the past 43 years have been a search to find an alternative spiritual life and a new language in which to express my longing for spiritual sustenance (see links below to samples).

All along I felt a desire for religious or, more precisely, spiritual fulfillment, but I did have problems with the religious institution that ignored the abuse, then denied it, inflicting grievous harm on the young people it claimed to serve. Religious risk?  No religion can ignore and violate the moral and spiritual values it claims to uphold and survive as a living force. Any religion that functions this way runs the risk of losing vitality and relevance. Of course there was and remains a risk in writing and publishing Catholic Boy Blues, the ancient tradition of attacking the messenger of bad news. I am the messenger of  bad news of childhood sexual abuse and will no doubt serve as a lightning rod to displaced anger some feel over what their church has done.

Not to have written these poems, however, would have been to violate my calling and mission as a poet. One does not rectify a violation by an institution of any kind, or help that institution recover,  by remaining silent and violating a sacred obligation to help others, in this case my fellow survivors, their extended families, and the clergy and church hierarchy. All of us need to heal.

2. How have you chosen not to use religion to overcome life challenges?

It is difficult if not impossible for a child to admit that all he and his family hold sacred about their religion has been violated by a man who is “God’s representative”  but who is nevertheless revered by his family and community.  It is impossible for an abused child to bring charges against his revered violator within a two year period, as stipulated by law.

What I did, fifty years after the abuse, was to face it and write poems documenting it, to proclaim to all the devastating  life-long effects that such abuse has on the innocent young,  but also to show the possibility of healing and recovery. A religion that covers up such a scandal is left with no moral authority. Ironically, the blues serve as the major agent of healing in the poems, but the thrust of Catholic Boy Blues is not negative. Fifty years after the abuse, I was finally ready to testify, knew that for the sake of my own healing and the good of my fellow survivors, I would speak, from within the church, on their behalf.

The support of our pastor for the past nine years at St. Mary’s Church, Indianapolis, Fr. Michael O’Mara, was monumental. He wrote the lead blurb for Catholic Boy Blues, which concludes: “It has been a spiritual journey to walk with Norbert Krapf through this ‘dark night.’ His courage to share this journey with us will be a resource for others who have experienced abuse and for their caregivers. Publishing this book required a lot of strength and prayer, and the Holy Father should have a copy.”

Lastly, Norbert Krapf also provided some links to his writings (pre-Catholic Boy Blues poems); and they are below including his  along with a brief interview about it:

1. YouTube reading of  a 9/11 poem,” Prayer to Walt Whitman at Ground Zero,” http://iupress.typepad.com/blog/2011/08/podcast-norbert-krapf-discusses-his-september-11-poetry.html
2. Here is a link to ten “Christmas card poems” on my web site: “Christmas Paper Mountain Drifts,” “Songs in Sepia and Black and White,” “Woods Chapel,” “Candles,” “One Long Love Song,” “Going to Church,” “Apples in Rainwater,” “Woods  Hymn,” “Strawberry Patch Song,” and “The Language of Place” all have to do with a religious or spiritual impulse: http://www.krapfpoetry.com/xmascard.htm.
3. Scroll down and you will find “Dogwoods and Rosebuds for Rita.” http://www.krapfpoetry.com/sepia.htm 
4. Scroll down for the prose poem “Legacy.” http://www.krapfpoetry.com/american_toc.html 
5. Four poems from Sweet Sister Moon: http://www.wordtechweb.com/krapf_poems.html 
6. “Still Dark" http://www.valpo.edu/vpr/krapfstill.html 
7. “Letter from a Star Above Southern Indiana,” prose poem. http://www.krapfpoetry.com/letter_from_star.htm 

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Alpha & Omega Prize Exhibition 2013, Explores "Religious Risks"

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

INDIANA---In addition, to a week of A&O Prize inductions and honors, the Alpha & Omega Project for Contemporary Religious Arts is pleased to present "Religious Risks," opening November 1, as part of the 18th annual Spirit & Place Festival. The full program includes more than thirty artist works (believers and skeptics too), representing the imaginations of a wide range of Indiana artists. The exhibition portion includes thirty emerging artists, as well as professionals such as Anila Agha, Tom Torluemke, Nhat Tran, and Constance Scopelitis. In addition, there is one youth scholarship honoree; and three poet honorees, Norbert Krapf, Tasha Jones, and Bonnie Mauer, who will present and join a group dialogue entitled, "Artist+Faith+Risk" on Saturday afternoon, November 9.

Alpha Omega Prize: "Religious Risks" (Nov. 1-29), at Indiana Interchurch Center's IIC Gallery, 1100 W. 42nd Street, Ground Floor; Indianapolis, IN; 317-919-0570; alphaomegaarts.org

VISUAL ARTISTS Anila Quayyum Agha Doug Arnholter Daniel Axler Sandi Ballard *Bailee Brantley Dan Cooper John Crowe LaShawnda Crowe Storm D. Del Reverda-Jennings Brian Diehl John Essex II Jonathon Frey Glory-June Greiff Linda Witte Henke Jonathon Kane Denis Ryan Kelly, Jr. Elizabeth Kenney Deborah Kolp Brigid Manning-Hamilton Tony Melendez Quincy Owens Ryan Petrow Tim Ryan Gary Schmitt Constance Edwards Scopelitis Bonnie Stahlecker Susan Lynn Tennant Tom Torluemke Nhat Tran Julia Wickes Terry Wilson LITERARY ARTISTS Norbert Krapf Bonnie Maurer Tasha Jones

PRIZE SUPPORTERS Sarah Adams  Sandi Ballard Jennifer Barnes Virginia Bievenour  Verneida Britton Karen Chinetti Todd Cox  Dolly Craft Spencer Crew Susan Disney Gregory Disney-Britton Ernest Disney-Britton Garry Fredericksen Carol Givens Ted Givens Katie Graham Todd & Teresa Hedback Melvin Jolliff Leslie Kreines Pastor Jeff Miner Michele Moriarty Jason Pack Ryan Petrow Tahlib Deborah Thornburgh Anthony Team Realty, LLC Julie Reed Betsy Sato Larry Sears Krista Skidmore  Jean Slaughter David Squire James Strain    Cheryl Strain David Sweet Desmond Wade Vivian Wyatt (*Student Winner)

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A&O Prize Exhibition Artist Participants

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

INDIANA---Who are the midwest artists taking the risk to explore religious ideas today, and sparking conversations about faith as a result? The following is a listing of such artists (believers and skeptics too) participating in the 2013 Spirit & Place Festival this November. The exhibition and program is produced by Alpha & Omega Project for Contemporary Religious Arts in partnership with the Center for Interfaith Cooperation and Indiana Interchurch Center.

Alpha Omega Prize: "Alpha & Omega: Religious Risks" (Nov. 1-29), at Indiana Interchurch Center's IIC Gallery, 1100 W. 42nd Street, Ground Floor; Indianapolis, IN; 317-919-0570; alphaomegaarts.org

VISUAL ARTISTS Anila Quayyum Agha Doug Arnholter Sandie Ballard Dan Cooper John Crowe LaShawnda Crowe D. Del Reverda-Jennings Brian Diehl Jonathon Frey Glory-June Grieff Linda Witte Henke Jimi Jones Jonathon Kane Denis Ryan Kelly, Jr. Elizabeth Kenney Deborah Kolp Brigid Manning-Hamilton Tony Melendez Quincy Owens Ryan Petrow Tom Phelps Tim Ryan Gary Schmitt Constance Edwards Scopelitis Bonnie Stahlecker Susan Lynn Tennant Tom Torluemke Nhat Tran Julia Wickes

LITERARY ARTISTS Norbert Krapf Bonnie Maurer Tasha Jones

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