Frank X Walker, a multidisciplinary artist and Al Smith Fellowship recipient, will open the 2013-14 “Writers Read Author series,” on Thursday, Sept. 19, at 8:30 p.m., in Eastern Mennonite University’s Lehman Auditorium.
As founder of the Affrilachian Poets, Walker is editor of: Pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture; America! What’s My Name?; The “Other” Poets Unfurl the Flag (Wind Publications, 2007); and Eclipsing a Nappy New Millennium.
“Walker’s work explores landscapes and place, social justice and American history,” said Kirsten Beachy, assistant professor of English at EMU. “His great gift is channeling the voices of people from long past and from the near neighborhood.”
Walker is the author of: Buffalo Dance: the Journey of York (University Press of Kentucky, 2003), winner of the 35th Annual Lillian Smith Book Award; and Affrilachia (Old Cove Press, 2000), a Kentucky Public Librarians’ Choice Award nominee. He is also the author of two other poetry collections.
Walker’s poems have been converted into a stage production by the University of Kentucky theater department and widely anthologized in numerous collections, including: The Appalachian Journal; Limestone; Roundtable; My Brothers Keeper; Spirit and Flame – An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry; and Role Call – A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art.
He is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and completed an MFA in writing at Spalding University. His latest work is a collection of poems, Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride.
More information
Sign-language interpretation is available upon request.
• General public, $5
• EMU students (with identification), free