Mortals Don’t Stand a Chance: Frank X Walker on About Flight

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Accents Publishing has just released your chapbook About Flight (2015). Is there anything you want your readers to know about this collection before they read it?

That I’m thrilled to see these poems in print though they are difficult to read and were very difficult to write.

The title and first poem evoke superheroes—Superman by name and Wonder Woman by her magic lasso—how does your interest in superheroes intersect with the sense of love, loss, guilt, and perseverance throughout the book?

If there is an intersection it would be start with how much of a super villain addiction is and how only superhero sized efforts could ever defeat it. In my reality, mere mortals don’t stand a chance.

The speaker does not merely observe the pain of Brother and other family members but participates in the grief and trauma of the book. In Domesticated, “I am simply the academy’s pet dog,” rings as one of the harshest condemnations of the collection.

Yeah, it’s not really a question…this is the poem that always gets stuck in my throat when I read it. The speaker in these poems is a participant in this drama, not just a witness or observer.

There’s a current of sardonic humor throughout the poems. What was your process in approaching humor in the face of tragedy?

I think its just part of my personality and personal philosophy to use humor to soften the blow. Somewhere in the healing process there is a step that suggests that if you can laugh about it, you’re at least in recovery.

Would you talk more about Etheridge Knight’s influence on this book and your writing?

Although I’m a fan of his poetry, it’s Knight’s life more than his work that is the touchstone for me and this book. His tour in the armed forces and his struggle with drug addiction always made me think about my brother.

The final poem resists a happy and tidy ending and instead challenges the reader to consider the violent role love has when helping those struggling with addiction. Do I interpret this correctly: the choice to give unconditionally can destroy the addict and the giver?

Yes, unconditionally loving an addict is destructive. The role of enabler comes from a place of love, but it does more harm than good to addicts and amending the situation.

What’s next for you and your writing?

I’m always working on multiple projects. I’ve another collection of poems coming out later this fall called, The Affrilachian Sonnets, and I hope to finally finish my novel. I made a lot of progress on it this summer and if I can get it done I get to begin my spring sabbatical working on two new projects. One is a collection of poems that respond to or are inspired by the writing and life of Thomas Jefferson. The other is an examination of apartheid that will require me to spend time on the ground in South Africa conducting research.

Multidisciplinary artist and Danville, Kentucky native, Frank X Walker, is the former Poet Laureate of Kentucky, and Professor in the department of English and the African American and AfricanaStudies Program at the University of Kentucky. The founding editor of Pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture is a Cave Canem Fellow, co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets, and the author of seven collections of poetry including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, winner of the 2014 NAACP Image Award for best poetry collection. The Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry recipient is the originator of the word, Affrilachia, and wholly committed to deconstructing and forging a new definition of a pluralistic Appalachia.