Abbott Ikeler is the author of the poetry collection "Outposts" ( Ibbetson 2007)
B.A., Harvard University; M.A., University of Pittsburgh; Ph.D., University of London, Kings College
Abbott Ikeler taught literature and writing at Bowdoin College, the University of Muenster, and Rhode Island College before entering the corporate world. His academic achievements include a Senior Fulbright Fellowship, a book on nineteenth-century aesthetics, and numerous articles on Victorian fiction. From the mid-eighties to 2001, he held public relations and advertising positions with three multinationals and a full-service agency. Immediately before coming to Emerson College ( Boston), Dr. Ikeler was Director of Communications and Public affairs for the Internet and Networking Division of Motorola, a post he held for three years. The focus of his current research is global public relations, especially the impact of non-media influencers, such as industry and financial analysts.
He writes poetry, memoirs and literary criticism, including a book published by Ohio State University Press on Thomas Carlyle, Puritan Temper and Transcendental Faith, and numerous articles on Dickens and Trollope. His poems have been published in The Concrete Wolf, The Somerville News, Dream International Quarterly, and Bagelbards Anthology, No. 2. A sample poem follows below.
Epiphanies
They happen on a subway platform
in the midst of mild debate,
hardly heated, on the merits of a film.
Or between courses at a restaurant
unrated by Michelin
over the indiscretions of a distant friend.
An old incompatibility
of taste or moral vision gathers
in an unremarkable moment in a quite prosaic spot
to a settled recognition on one side or the other
of a wall that can’t be climbed.
The rest—days or decades—is merest epilogue.
--Abbott Ikeler