Tag Archives: frank x walker

Frank X Walker Organizes Kentucky Artists in Danville

According to Rich Copley of the Herald-Leader, Frank X Walker and Lamin Swann are organizing Kentucky artists to meet in Danville. According to the article, Frank said, “I’m crazy enough to believe Kentucky has more artists and writers than horses and distilleries. Yet our arts/artists still seem to be one of our best kept secrets. Given the current political climate in the country, I think its important for artists to be proactive and not reactionary.” Continue reading →

Upcoming Poetry Events

445 Replies

Over the next couple weeks, Kentucky offers opportunities to eat world cuisine while enjoying a reading, listen to the Affrilachian Poets while sipping on beer, and share an open mic with two esteemed poets.

These event listings came from the Kentucky Literary Calendar. Continue reading →

Holler Poets Series 99: The Affrilachian Poets 25th Anniversary

713 Replies

This Wednesday, August 31, the Holler poets will be celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Affrilachian Poets with a selection of poets curated by Frank X Walker and the musical stylings of DeBraun Thomas.

When:	Wednesday, August 31, 2016 @ 8pm
Where:	Al’s Bar
	601 N Limestone
	Lexington, KY 40508
	(859) 309-2901

Continue reading →

Kentucky Writers Day 2016

170 Replies

Lori meadows, Executive Director for the Kentucky Arts Council gave the opening remarks for Kentucky Writers’ Day on April 25th, 2016.

Below are videos of the other readers, three of which are poets published by Accents and all of which are Poet Laureates of Kentucky.

Continue reading →

Accents Update: Frank X Walker

12 Replies

Just in time for the Derby, NPR ran a piece by Frank X Walker about the heritage behind “My Old Kentucky Home”.

You can read the write-up by NPR staff by clicking here.

Over the past few months, Walker has been touring local colleges, including Northeast State, Western Kentucky University, and Tuskegee University.

You can find out more information by visiting his website.

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

237 Replies

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)

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.

Frank X Walker reads “Love Letter to the World” at Kentucky Writers’ Day 2015

230 Replies

Frank X Walker read during the inauguration of George Ella Lyon at Kentucky Writers’ Day on April 24th, 2015. He read the poem “Love Letter to the World”, which was the poem selected for the Lexington Tattoo Projectin in 2015.

Kentucky Writers’ Day was established by the Kentucky General Assemply in 1990 in order to honor Robert Penn Warren, which is why it is set on or around his birthday, April 24th. Every odd year, the event inaugurates the new Kentucky Poet Laureate. In 2015, that was George Ella Lyon.

The next Kentucky Writers’ Day will be on Monday, April 25th at the Capital Rotunda in Frankfort, Kentucky. Click here for more information.

2015—The Authors

328 Replies

Barbara Goldberg is the author of four prize-winning books of poetry, including The Royal Baker’s Daughter, winner of the Felix Pollak Poetry Award. She is the translator of Scorched by the Sun, poems by the Israeli poet Moshe Dor. The two selected and translated four anthologies of contemporary Israeli poetry. Goldberg received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as awards in translation, fiction and speechwriting. Her poems appear in Best American Poetry, Paris Review, Poetry and elsewhere, Goldberg is the series editor of the Word Works’ International Imprint.

[posts-by-tag tags = “barbara goldberg”] Continue reading →

Accents Publishing Pushcart Nominations

3 Replies

Accents Publishing is happy to nominate the following poems for the Pushcart Prize:

“My Mother’s Last Doctor Visit” by Patty Paine, originally published in Grief & Other Animals
“Distinguishing Characteristics in Four Polaroids” by Jay McCoy, originally Published in The Occupation
“Paratrooper” by Frank X Walker, originally published in About Flight
“In My Fuck Me Shoes” by Bianca Bargo, originally published in How I Became an Angry Woman
“Hard” by corey kirby, originally published in This Wretched Vessel
“Bare Feet” by Travis Stidham, originally published in This Wretched Vessel

Poetry Reading: Frank X Walker’s ENG 407 Students

10 Replies

The Wild Fig Coffee & Books will host a reading by students of Frank X Walker’s ENG 407 class. The University of Kentucky students include Chris Best, Lauren Chelsea Comberger, Sabirah Rayford, and Shannan Slone.

For more information, check out the Facebook Event page.

When:	Friday, December 11, 2015 @ 6pm
Where:	The Wild Fig
	726 N. Limestone
	Lexington, KY 40508
	(859) 252-3052

Accents Publishing Blog

an independent press for brilliant voices