M.E. Kreher
San Francisco, CA
Member since 1994

Q. When and why did you first become a Member of the Academy of American Poets?

I became a member in 1994 because I wanted to support an organization that promoted and celebrated poets and their work, an organization dedicated to the poetic voice and its relevancy in the world, an organization whose programs reflected its vision. I saw that in the Academy and have been pleased to see its growth over the years.

Q. Who are your favorite poets and why?

My list of favorites grows each year, and I imagine it may hold 30 or more poets right now. Lately I've been reading the work of Czeslaw Milosz, Pablo Neruda, Mary Oliver, and Seamus Heaney. Their poetry is woven of soul and passion, awe and humility. Their craft is extraordinary.

Q. What do you see as the most important contribution the Academy makes to poetry today?

Of all the events and activities and programs the Academy sponsors, I believe its most important contribution is the bright light of relevancy it shines on poetry and its celebration of those who create it.

Q. What do you see as the biggest challenge the Academy faces?

The Academy has a thriving presence in New York, and I would love to see the Academy expand its programs on the west coast.

Sander Zulauf
Andover, NJ
Member since 1976

Q. When and why did you first become a Member of the Academy of American Poets?

I became a member of the Academy of American Poets in 1976, largely because at the time the Academy was presenting public poetry readings in New York by some of the very best American poets. As a young college professor, I brought some of my students to the readings with me.

Q. Who are your favorite poets and why?

James Wright—for me, the most important poet of the last half of the 20th century. Unabashed compassion for those on whom society has turned its back.

Howard Nemerov—brilliant and funny, formally informal, fearless.

Michael S. Harper—poetry of great emotional depth that takes risks and rides, merging blues and jazz into words that astonish.

Philip Levine—wonderful poetry with razor sharp edges, wonderful prose sanded smooth. Controlled intensity that never disappoints, that always leads to a purposeful crescendo of compassion for either a sacrifice or a failure.

Philip Appleman—my great distinguished Professor Emeritus from Indiana University, who combats those who would turn faith into science and those who would turn science into faith, with reasoned poetry born of a lifelong fascination with Charles Darwin.

Grace Paley—Perhaps the one voice of social conscience and consciousness and courage who stands up to merciless power and shows it for the tawdry sham it is, for the violence it begets on the poor and powerless, who shakes her fist and raises her voice regardless of personal consequences. And does it with enormous grace.

Lucille Clifton—a beautiful voice that insists on being heard, that raises consciousness on things that are not right, wrongs done, whether yesterday or four hundred years ago.

Carolyn Kizer—who combines wit, compassion, joy, & humanity with sheer guts.

Robert Bly—because he supported Wright in a difficult time, and because he never gave up his own crusade for poetry that reflected his own particular "deep image" sense of the art.

Maxine Kumin—so wonderfully accessible, her poetry insists on the clear telling of the truth.

Donald Hall—"The Names of Horses," Jane Kenyon, the generosity of his spirit to all poets everywhere.

Kenneth Burke—my dead friend, Philosopher-poet, "agro-bohemian" wordsmith from New Jersey.

Joe Weil—for his voice, his self-deprecating and self-effacing persona poems, his charisma, his ineffable and largely unrecognized genius.

XJ Kennedy—a wonderful teacher, a poet who understands that joy in poems is as important as profundity and both can coexist in the same poem.

Stephen Dunn—Poignant resonance everywhere you turn.

Gerald Stern—Compassion for the hopeless, a rabbi to the polluted rivers, whacked weeds, and dead animals that surround us.

C. K. Williams—Master of the long line completed with grace, poems that always arrive but not where you expect them to.

Yusef Komunyakaa—Nightmare Viet Nam as real as this very moment of sight and sound and breath, of fear and hope.

Mark Doty—His wisdom, his humanity, his celebration of life written out in terms of Howard Nemerov, who says in one of his great poems, that life is "hopeless and beautiful."

Q. What do you see as the most important contribution the Academy makes to poetry today?

The annual College Poetry Prizes, National Poetry Month, the Academy Web Site (Poets.org), and readings and programs in New York and around the nation.

Q. What do you see as the biggest challenge the Academy faces?

Attracting new members, keeping them loyal and continuing, and keeping the old ones like me interested and included so we attend Academy events.