Collects poems about the African American experience in such rural areas as the Appalachian region.

The people and places in Appalachia make it a rich, multifaceted, and diverse region. When author Frank X Walker first coined the phrase "Affrilachia," he wanted to ensure that the voices and accomplishments of African Americans in that region were recognized and exalted. A Is for Affrilachia not only brings awareness of notable African Americans from this region, but this inspired children's alphabet book is also an exuberant celebration of the people, physical spaces, and historical events that may not be as well-known in mainstream educational structures. Illustrated by acclaimed artist upfromsumdirt, every image exudes vibrancy, beauty, and whimsy as it depicts an alphabetized word alongside each corresponding letter. Featured are a range of musicians, artists, and activists, as well as mountain ranges, literary works, and coal mining implements. Famous names, such as playwright August Wilson, writer Nikki Giovanni, actor Chadwick Boseman, and singer Nina Simone are spotlighted, as well as lesser-known individuals, such as artist Romare Bearden and musician Amythyst Kiah. Particularly poignant are the letters representing the four girls—Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley—who were killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. Equipped with a glossary to engage discussion regarding the importance of the individuals and places represented, this children's book is a unique and engaging ABC primer that offers a rich display of regional, racial, and cultural heritage through word and image.

The Appalachian region stretches from Mississippi to New York, encompassing rural areas as well as cities from Birmingham to Pittsburgh. Though Appalachia's people are as diverse as its terrain, few other regions in America are as burdened with stereotypes. Author Frank X Walker coined the term "Affrilachia" to give identity and voice to people of African descent from this region and to highlight Appalachia's multicultural identity. This act inspired a group of gifted artists, the Affrilachian Poets, to begin working together and using their writing to defy persistent stereotypes of Appalachia as a racially and culturally homogenized region. After years of growth, honors, and accomplishments, the group is acknowledging its silver anniversary with Black Bone. Edited by two newer members of the Affrilachian Poets, Bianca Lynne Spriggs and Jeremy Paden, Black Bone is a beautiful collection of both new and classic work and features submissions from Frank X Walker, Nikky Finney, Gerald Coleman, Crystal Wilkinson, Kelly Norman Ellis, and many others. This illuminating and powerful collection is a testament to a groundbreaking group and its enduring legacy.

A collection of poems mostly about the African-American experience.

When Frank X Walker's compelling collection of personal poems was first released in 2004, it told the story of the infamous Lewis and Clark expedition from the point of view of York, who was enslaved to Clark and became the first African American man to traverse the continent. The fictionalized poems in Buffalo Dance form a narrative of York's inner journey before, during, and after the expedition—a journey from slavery to freedom, from the plantation to the great Northwest, from servant to soul yearning to be free. In this expanded edition, Walker utilizes extensive historical research, interviews, transcribed oral histories from the Nez Perce Reservation, art, and empathy to breathe new life into an important but overlooked historical figure. Featuring a new historical essay, preface, and sixteen additional poems, this powerful work speaks to such themes as racism, the power of literacy, the inhumanity of slavery, and the crimes against Native Americans, while reawakening and reclaiming the lost "voice" of York.

A stirring and historically substantive tribute to literal freedom fighters that provides inspiration and instruction for all who believe in liberation in illiberal times. —Cortney Lamar Charleston For decades Frank X Walker has reclaimed essential American lives through his pathbreaking historical poetry. In this stirring new collection, he reimagines the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers—including his own ancestors—who enlisted in the Union army in exchange for emancipation. Moving chronologically from antebellum Kentucky through Reconstruction, Walker braids the voices of the United States Colored Troops with their family members, as well as slave owners and prominent historical figures from Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglas and Margaret Garner. Imbued with atmospheric imagery, these persona poems and more “[clarify] not only the inextricable value of Black life and labor to the building of America, but the terrible price they were forced to pay in producing that labor” (Khadijah Queen). “How do you un-orphan a people?” Walker asks. “How do you pick up / shattered black porcelain and make / a new set of dishes fit to eat off?” While carefully attuned to the heartbreak and horrors of war, Walker’s poems pay equal care to the pride, perseverance, and triumphs of their speakers. Evoking the formerly enslaved General Charles Young, Walker hums: “I am America’s promise, my mother’s song, / and the reason my father had every right to dream.” Expansive and intimate, Load in Nine Times is a resounding ode to the powerful ties of individual and cultural ancestry by an indelible voice in American poetry.

A calling into being of a surrealist African American poetic mythology. FINALIST FOR THE MIDWEST BOOK AWARDS! What if N. K. Jemisin or Ishmael Reed wrote Frankenstein, or if Kara Walker originally illustrated the works of the Brothers Grimm? What if, instead of modern superhero figures, the Black Panthercharacters as depicted by Ta-Nehisi Coates were figures of mythology, taught alongside the Greco-Roman pantheon? Divided into three sections—"I Don't Know Who Needs To Hear This But," "The Girl With The Frantz Fanon Tattoo," and "The Underground Rubaiyat"—this collection of mythological, Afrofuturist, and surrealist poems addresses a literary void resulting from the structural violence of slavery and segregation. This collection invites readers to interrogate the motifs of canonical poetics alongside historical and contemporary interactions real and imagined. Drawing inspiration from African and Diasporic narratives, these poems evoke the surrealism of African author Amos Tutuola as much as they do English author Lewis Carroll. The Second Stop is Jupiter is a deep engagement with the cultural narrative, populated with Black hero figures who will fuel the imagination. upfromsumdirt invites us to ask, what if, with characters and poetic motifs rooted in existing narratives of Black life and fable. Titles like "The Death of Olympia" and "The Three Sulas" set the tone for this collection to manifest a Pan-Africanist poetics entwined with themes of Classical Romanticism.