James Kraft

Just because National Poetry Month is over, dear readers, doesn’t mean that we have stopped thinking and writing about poetry.  It’s always a pleasure to introduce a poet in this column.

Our poet today has had such a long and distinguished career as an educator, arts administrator, biographer, reviewer and editor that it’s hard to believe he ever had time to write a poem.  Nevertheless, he produced two fine volumes: reunion, in 1987 (New York: The Promise of Learning, Inc.) and Walker, a collaboration with artist James De Woody, privately printed in an edition of eighty numbered copies in 1992.

Born in Washington, D.C., he was educated at the Canterbury School in Connecticut, Princeton University, where he received a High Honors B.A., the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford, England, and Cambridge University, King’s College.  From Fordham University he received his M.A. and Ph.D. in English.

To briefly enumerate the positions he has held: Visiting Professor at the Universite Laval in France; Director, Office of Special Projects for the National Endowment for the Humanities; Dean of the Adult Division at the New School for Social Research; Senior Consultant at Brakeley, John Price Jones, Inc., responsible for consultation on management and fund-raising for non-profit cultural groups; Assistant Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Vice-President for Development at the Manhattan School of Music; Consultant to the London Symphony Orchestra and the American Craft Museum; and, most recently, a teacher of American Literature for the Berkshire Institute for Lifetime Learning in Pittsfield, MA, the Mercantile Library and the New York Society Library in NYC; the Mount in Lenox, MA, and libraries in Scoville and Salisbury, Ct. He has also taught at Wesleyan University, Phillips Academy, Andover and the University of Virginia.