Black Box: Poems

“The work of Frank X Walker is an eclectic, powerful mixture of liberating style, profound insight, and unwavering organic connection to the intellectual, political, and cultural struggles of a people. He stands in the tradition of DuBois, McKay, Robeson, and Hughes.”
Ricky L. Jones, author of Black Haze: Violence, Sacrifice, and Manhood in Black Greek-Letter Fraternities

“The spirit of a child runs through the poetry of Frank X Walker’s Black Box. A young, rural black boy recalls his parents, grandparents, and ancestors who originally settled the land, built the rock walls and dug in the coal mines. Close-to-the-bone poetry. A poet for all generations.”
Mary Popham, Louisville Courier-Journal

A powerful collection from Frank X Walker, winner of the 2005 Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry.

In 68 poems, Kentucky writer Frank X Walker expertly melds autobiography, political commentary, and literary allusions into a devastatingly beautiful journey through the real “Affrilachia”— a word Walker created to render visible the lives of the African-Americans who call the rural and Appalachian South home. Written with passion, clarity, and emotional honesty, the poems in Black Box illuminate profound experiences at the intersection of race, love, social justice, family, identity and place.

Published in 2005 by Old Cove Press

Frank X Walker is a native of Danville, Kentucky, and associate professor of English at the University of Kentucky. He was appointed Kentucky Poet Laureate, 2013–2014 by Governor Steve Beshear. A founding member of the Affrilachian Poets, he created the word “Affrilachia” to help make visible the black experience in the Appalachian South. He is the author of five poetry collections: Affrilachia, Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York, Black Box: Poems, When Winter Come: The Ascension of York, and Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride.

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