Frank X Walker is a leading black poet in Kentucky. This book brings together his finest poems of the last ten years. Walker coined the word "Affrilachia" to help make visible the experience of African-Americans living in rural areas like Appalachia. The book is a high-quality, smyth-sewn paperbook, printed on 70-lb vellum, with a tritone photograph on the cover. Kentucky author Gurney Norman writes: "The poems in Affrilachia are funny and sad, tragic and hopeful, angry and determined, and as filled with generosity and love as poetry by any American writer in a generation. This book is powerful and beautiful. It is honest and true."
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"Finally, a gathering of words that fiercely speaks to what it truly means to grow up African-American in Appalachia. These are not stories of those of us transplanted conveniently into the territory for whatever reason. These poem-stories are from a native Affrilachian heart, more specifically, from the man who first created the word in order to define and not be rendered invisible. This personal poetic narrative is a historic valuable offering, one man's unapologetic truth, granting us an eagle eye view into what it means to be young, Black, artistic, and male in America as one century comes to an end and another begins. His poetry looks you in the eye, in plain-spoken unembellished, heartfelt language. Anyone who knows about the human heart and human nature can read it." --Nikky Finney, author of Rice, Sister Vision Press.
About the Author
Frank X Walker is a native of Danville, Kentucky. He is cofounder of the Affrilachian Poets, a group of young black writers in Kentucky whose work addresses themes of family, place, the struggle for social justice, and identity. Currently the director of the Kentucky Governors School for the Arts, Walker has published widely in journals and anthologies, including Spirit and Flame (Syracuse University Press).
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More About the Author
Kentucky poet Frank X Walker coined the word "Affrilachia" to make visible the black experience in the Appalachian South. His awards include a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry and the Lillian Smith Book Award. He is Associate Professor of English at the University of Kentucky. Author Photo: Rachel Eliza Griffiths.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
an excellent collection,
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This review is from: Affrilachia: Poems by Frank X Walker (Paperback)
Frank X. Walker's fine poems are engaging and personal--they form a sort of memoir of the poet's life, one that tocuhes the reader's own memory and sense of self. We recognize moments of our own--personal moments, cultural moments, political moments, spiritual moments--and that recognition speaks to us of both the poet's power and the poem's. My favorite poem may be "Fireproof," about the aftermath of the burning of a black church building. I also appreciated "Hummingbird," about the death of a young man from AIDS. But it is difficult to pick out single poems for comment--though many are incredibly powerful individually, it is as a collection that the work finds a place within you and makes a home. This volume demonstrates Frank X. Walker is a voice that will be heard.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A reminder of the meaningfulness of the poet's soul,
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This review is from: Affrilachia: Poems by Frank X Walker (Paperback)
I just recently saw the theatrical version of AFFRILACHIA on the campus of the University of Kentucky (which was truly something else), and had to have a copy of his book immediately afterwards. Having met and spoken to the author on several occasion, I knew his honesty and warmth would inevitably express itself in collection of his writings. AFFRILACHIA is a love letter to the Black Kentuckian soul. And yet in it's regional specificity, rhythmic lyricism and illuminating of time, place, events and relationships (as well as their marriage to universal human truths and modern lies) it is a celebration of the African-American creative spirit transcendental as it continues to walk tall, shout hallelujah and dance throughout our country, and much of the world. Frank X. Walker achieves many sacred paradoxes with the honesty of his craft and style: the more universally he ruminates on the human condition and the grand themes of the late 20th Century African-American experience, the more he unveils the singularity of what it is to be a Black man from Kentucky. The more he speaks to the personal experiences of his heart and the individual things, people and ideas he truly loves (like, obviously, the prose poetic language itself), the more universal his poetry becomes, and the deeper it resonates in your heart. Being a poet and musician myself born and raised in New York City, I came to his work mired in unconscious stereotype based purely on regional demographics. (The very prejudice a brother [or anyone] from the big city of big cities would be offended by if he witnessed its expression, experienced it by others, or if you brought it to his attention.) I told myself unawares not to expect the jazz lyricism, introspection, challenging political insight wrapped in rhythmic eternal emotional truths- in other words, all that signifies the triumph of prose over the prosaic- of my classic favorites, heroes and friends in his work. And then I read "In Hell, Exhale", and couldn't stop smiling. I found myself being reminded of the true poet's power to create the space for the paradigm shifts that philosophers, historians and idealogues fill in his potent demand for new perspectives on Dr. Martin Luther King (forshadowing the heart and soul, it seems, of Eric Dyson's monumental new biography) with "Lil Kings". I laughed out loud at the celebrated soul of Blackness in the rap artist in "Neopolitan", as he challenged me to consider that their veracity, as it exists in our time, has the power to "eclipse jazz" the way Bird and Coltrane- and the visual art of Miles Davis in the eighties- in their own way eclipsed the shining stars of their predecessors in their own time. And the performance of a select number of the gems in this book in the theatrical piece created for its celebration humbled me to the point of knowing that, even in leaving Harlem for the Bluegrass, I found a way to come home. This work is full of honesty, and full of heart. He teaches as much as he entertains. He is a fine poet, and this is a fine book of poetry.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Praise for Affrilachia,
This review is from: Affrilachia: Poems by Frank X Walker (Paperback)
As you enter Frank X.Walker's collection of poetry know that you are entering a place of truth. Know that he is blazing a trail into Kentucky's literary history. Written by one of the state's own native sons, these words shed new light and breathe color. Affrilachia declares loudly and proudly that "some of the Bluegrass is Black." You will find on these pages indication of Frank's mastery of language and his ability and power to captivate you from a universal place, not just the Affrilachian experience. From this black man's eye we see Kentucky in all its beauty and its ugliness. We glimpse the Million Man March from the inside. We pay homage to African and Blackfoot Indian ancestry. We see Betty Shabazz's transition in death and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. resurrected as a rap artist. From his gut we feel divorce, a family member's drug addiction, religious differences, and the deaths of loved ones. We bear witness to a father's devotion to his children and share the ecstasy, trials and tribulations of love. Through Frank we begin to understand a "belly warm" bond with a best friend and the feelings generated from a callous stare and shouts of `selling out' from a stranger. Enter these poems with anticipated satisfaction. Know that by absorbing these words, by fingering these pages, you witness this Affrilachian Poet buffalo soldiering his way. Know that these are words of genuine truth that put Frank in his rightful place in a peacock chair alongside Kentucky's greats Gurney Norman, George C. Wolfe, James Still, William Wells Brown, bell hooks, Wendell Berry, Gayl Jones, Ed McClanahan, Effie Waller Smith and countless others.
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