James Strecker has been both a poet and a reviewer of the arts for over four decades. In Creativity and Creators in the Arts: Poems Celebrating the Muse 1984-2018, he enters creative experience with insightful imagination and long-honed awareness. To jazz legend Oscar Peterson, "James Strecker has a very musical approach to poetry... (he is also) a critical voice that I respect." Martha Henry, a pillar of the Stratford Festival, notes, "James Strecker loves the work, actually sees the work that's been done (something very rare). We are lucky to have him." To Jeff Mahoney of the Hamilton Spectator, "James Strecker is an artist of the arts, and he takes for his subject the luminescence left on our senses by the work of dancers and musicians, painters and poets. Most artists go into the world and bring back art; Strecker goes into art and brings back worlds." Strecker is the author or editor of thirty books and also a columnist, song lyricist, human development consultant, occasional artist, a workshop presenter, and a retired college professor.