Tag Archives: About Flight

“Don’t Call Him Ishmael” by Frank X Walker

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Hard time didn’t make Brother wiser
like it did Etheridge Knight.
He returned home from prison
with a pocket full of excuses, not poems.

You’d thought he’d read Moby Dick
while on lock down, the way he chased
great whites, each encounter separating him
like Ahab from his leg, first from his own
children and eventually from    himself.

Regret is for families forgiving enough
to break their own promises,
not realizing that even if the harpoon
is made of love, it can still drag
the whole boat down with the whale.

We might have understood revenge
and even obsession, but addiction
is more unforgiving than the sea.

–Frank X Walker,
About Flight
(Accents Publishing)

dr. frank x walker thumbnailMultidisciplinary 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.

2015—The Books

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Accents Publishing released ten books in 2015.

Chevy Chaser’s “2015 Literary Round-Up” Features 2 Accents Books

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Lexington’s Chevy Chaser Magazine annually collects a list of books by local authors that it recommends for the holiday shopping season. In this year’s Literary Roundup, Bianca Spriggs recommends Frank X Walker’s About Flight and Circe’s Lament: Anthology of Wild Women Poetry.

about flight thumbnailOn About Flight:

Just when you think you know what to expect from a Frank X Walker poetry collection, this highly decorated former Kentucky poet laureate and co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets releases a slender tome of heavy-hitting autobiographical poems that revolve around the heartbreak of bearing witness to a family member’s crippling addiction. These poems lament and mourn, yes, but most of all, they do not back away or flinch from the sobering topic of substance abuse and the lingering effects someone’s addiction can have on their family.

Circe's Lament edited by Bianca Spriggs and Katerina Stoykova-KlemerOn Circe’s Lament:

Whether religious text, classical epic, or family lore, narratives of so-called “wild women” such as Circe of “The Odyssey” still give readers the urge to speculate about legendary women, from Amazon to roots-worker, goddess to gunslinger. What compelled these fascinating women to act? What set them apart? This anthology boasts a collection of exhilarating women from poets from around the world who channel the infamous, the historical, the wild woman next door – and even the one in the mirror.

The list also includes National Book Award Finalist Bright Dead Things (Milkweed Editions) by Ada Limón and Trampoline (Ohio University Press) by Robert Gipe (who was one of the featured readers at Holler Poets Series 84).

For more information, you can read the full write-up by clicking here.

“Right Brothers” by Frank X Walker

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about flight thumbnailfor Cecil

An unexpected tornado
taught us everything

we would ever need
to know about flight

kiting my little brother’s
paperdoll body

off the ground
like a black superman.

Tethered to me with
with a magic lasso:

mama’s instructions
to watch over him.

–Frank X Walker,
About Flight
(Accents Publishing)

dr. frank x walker thumbnailMultidisciplinary 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 Africana Studies 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.

Frank X. Walker Reading/Signing About Flight at the Morris book shop

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about flight thumbnailFormer Kentucky poet laureate and Accents author Frank X. Walker will be reading from About Flight (Accents Publishing) on Saturday, October 17th at 1pm.

About Flight is a poetry collection about dealing with a brother’s addiction to crack cocaine. In an interview with Christopher McCurry, Walker discusses the intersection of his superhero/villain language and addiction: “If there is an intersection it would 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.”

Randall Horton, author of Pitch Dark Anarchy (Northwestern University Press) and Hook: A Memoir (Augury Books), said, “Up until this point in American history, no poet has written an honest and believable lament about the crippling effects from the tornado swirl of a crack pipe, how a little rock being melted between thin mesh screen creates pallid smoke: a monster, a slave to the white lady that is cocaine.”

When: Saturday, October 17, 2015 @ 1pm
Where: the Morris book shop
882 E. High Street
Lexington, KY 40502
(859) 276-0494

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?

dr. frank x walker thumbnailThat 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.

about flight thumbnailThere’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.

“Worst-Case Scenario” by Frank X Walker

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about flight thumbnailI open the door to the drug den
where my brothers and sister
have taken their rent, child support,
utility and food money,

promises to Mama
tattooed across my face.

I sing them their favorite lullabies,
forge their names on love letters
addressed to their children,

share one last ‘remember when’
and laugh until our stomachs hurt.

I hug and squeeze them as hard as I can,
then usher them all—dealers and users alike,
into the afterlife, with the courage
and conviction of a suicide bomber.

–Frank X Walker,
About Flight
(Accents Publishing)

dr. frank x walker thumbnailMultidisciplinary 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.

About Flight by Frank X. Walker

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about flight thumbnailAccents Publishing is proud to announce About Flight, a poetry chapbook by Frank X. Walker.

“Up until this point in American history, no poet has written an honest and believable lament about the crippling effects from the tornado swirl of a crack pipe, how a little rock being melted between thin mesh screen creates pallid smoke: a monster, a slave to the white lady that is cocaine. In About Flight, Frank X Walker gives us the beautiful ugly narrative of a brother who is wrestling with chemical dependency, and losing. The high, in all of its beautiful contradictions takes on the metaphor of flight, and so we soar through the terrible highs and lows of a protagonist who carries his family with him into the den of iniquity.”

—Randall Horton,
author of Pitch Dark Anarchy & Hook: A Memoir

dr. frank x walker thumbnailMultidisciplinary 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 Africana Studies 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.