Contemporary poet Frank X Walker will present a free Zoom lecture on “Appalachia’s Gifts to Black History” on Feb. 16 at 6 p.m. The event is sponsored by the Northeast State’s Office of Inclusive Excellence.
The first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate, Walker is a professor of English and African American and Africana Studies and director of the MFA in Creative Writing program at the University of Kentucky in Lexington where he founded pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture.
He has published 11 collections of poetry, including his latest, Masked Man, Black: Pandemic & Protest Poems. His collection, Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, was awarded an NAACP Image Award and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award.
Voted one of the most creative professors in the south, Walker coined the term “Affrilachia” and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets, subsequently publishing the much-celebrated eponymous collection in 2000. According to Walker’s website, he created the word to help make visible the experience of African-Americans living in the rural and Appalachian South. The book is widely used in classrooms and is one of the foundational works of the Affrilachian Poets, a community of writers offering fresh ways to think about diversity in the Appalachian region and beyond.
“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,” said Ricky L. Jones, author of Black Haze. “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.”
He has lectured, conducted workshops and read poetry at over 400 national conferences, arts centers and universities across the globe including Derry, Northern Ireland; Santiago, Cuba; Shanghai and Beijing, China, Mainz, Germany, Toronto, Canada, New York’s Lincoln Center, the University of California at Berkeley; Notre Dame; and Appalachian State University.
A recipient of the Lannan Poetry Fellowship Award, Walker has degrees from the University of Kentucky and Spalding University as well as three honorary doctorates from the University of Kentucky, Spalding University and Transylvania University.
Contemporary poet Frank X Walker will present a free Zoom lecture on “Appalachia’s Gifts to Black History” on Feb. 16 at 6 p.m. The event is sponsored by the Northeast State’s Office of Inclusive Excellence.
Join Via Zoom: https://northeaststate.zoom.us/s/98466060954 or Zoom Meeting ID: 984 6606 0954 Passcode: 692063.
The first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate, Walker is a professor of English and African American and Africana Studies and director of the MFA in Creative Writing program at the University of Kentucky in Lexington where he founded pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture.
He has published 11 collections of poetry, including his latest, Masked Man, Black: Pandemic & Protest Poems. His collection, Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, was awarded an NAACP Image Award and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award.
Voted one of the most creative professors in the south, Walker coined the term “Affrilachia” and co-founded the Affrilachian Poets, subsequently publishing the much-celebrated eponymous collection in 2000. According to Walker’s website, he created the word to help make visible the experience of African-Americans living in the rural and Appalachian South. The book is widely used in classrooms and is one of the foundational works of the Affrilachian Poets, a community of writers offering fresh ways to think about diversity in the Appalachian region and beyond.
“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,” said Ricky L. Jones, author of Black Haze. “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.”
He has lectured, conducted workshops and read poetry at over 400 national conferences, arts centers and universities across the globe including Derry, Northern Ireland; Santiago, Cuba; Shanghai and Beijing, China, Mainz, Germany, Toronto, Canada, New York’s Lincoln Center, the University of California at Berkeley; Notre Dame; and Appalachian State University.
A recipient of the Lannan Poetry Fellowship Award, Walker has degrees from the University of Kentucky and Spalding University as well as three honorary doctorates from the University of Kentucky, Spalding University and Transylvania University.
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