Press Information
Press bio
The first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate, Frank X Walker is Professor of English and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky in Lexington where he founded pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture. He has published eleven collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded an NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. He is also the author of Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York, winner of a Lillian Smith Book Award, and Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride, which he adapted for stage. Voted one of the most creative professors in the south, Walker, a Danville native, coined the term “Affrilachia” and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets. A Cave Canem fellow, his honors also include a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry. His most recent collection is Masked Man, Black: Pandemic & Protest Poems. [ Read his full bio. ]
On Frank
"The work of Frank X Walker is an eclectic, powerful mixture of liberating style, profound insight, and unwavering organic connection to the intellectual, political, and cultural struggles of a people. He stands in the tradition of DuBois, McKay, Robeson, Hughes, and other great writers, poets and performers whose contributions have transcended time and space to give generation after generation pause and hope." — Ricky L. Jones, author of Black Haze
On Buffalo Dance: the Journey of York
"An ardently imagined and gloriously vivid first-person account of York’s awe over the munificent and daunting wilderness, and instant rapport with the Indians he meets.”— Booklist (starred review)
“A brave collection of poems. . . . Brims with the rich complexity of York’s condition in a way that will appeal to a wide audience.”— Louisville Courier-Journal
Additional Media
Photo by Patrick Mitchell. Please credit the photographer if you use the photo. Right-click to download.