Books in Kentucky Voices, 3 series

" Winner of the 35th Annual Lillian Smith Book Award, 2004 A BookSense 76 Spring 2004 Top 10 Poetry Book! Read an excerpt from the book Listen to Frank X Walker reading on NPR's ""This I Believe"" segment of Morning Edition. This collection of persona poems tells the story of the infamous Lewis & Clark expedition from the point of view of Clark's personal slave, York. The poems form a narrative of York's inner and outer 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. Over the course of the saga and through the poems, we are treated to subtle and overt commentaries on literacy, slavery, native Americans, buffalo, the environment, and more. Though Buffalo Dance purposely references historic accounts and facts, it is fictionalized poetry, and Frank X Walker's rare blend of history and art breathes life into an important but overlooked historical figure. Frank X Walker is the author of Affrilachia and the soon to be released Black Box , two collections of poetry. He teaches in the department of English & Theatre and is the interim Director of the African/African American Studies Program at Eastern Kentucky University. He is also a visiting professor in Pan African Studies department at the University of Louisville. A 2004 recipient of the Lillian Smith Book Award, he lives in Lexington, KY. Click here for Frank Walker's website.

In Buffalo Dance, Frank X Walker innovatively blurs the lines between poetry, fiction, and history to tell the story of the infamous Lewis and Clark expedition from the point of view of Clark’s slave, York, the first African American to traverse the continent. Breathing lyrical life into an important but overlooked historical figure, these poems vividly present the intricacies of York’s personality and form a narrative of his saga—a physical journey from the plantation to the great northwest and a spiritual journey from a humble servant to a man yearning for fulfillment and freedom. In the narrative fabric these poems weave, York bears the burden of heavy labor as the expedition travels hundreds of miles of waterways in search of a Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, York empathizes with the Native Americans he encounters and joins them in mourning his masters' dominion over the land and their misuse of the Earth’s riches. The awe-inspiring natural beauty of the American west that his masters will despoil move York to the realization that "every soft an pretty thing God make / got a hard an ugly to carry with it." Walker's poetry relates York’s bitter tales of his elders’ abductions, devastating memories of fleeting moments shared with his wife, feverish dreams of running free with buffalo and flying unfettered over the continent, and imagined promises to family and friends to "return and bring you wings." Though York remains a slave throughout his travels, Walker endows him with experiences and emotions that liberate his spirit though his body remains enslaved. At the journey’s end, after experiencing life beyond the plantation and gaining insight into nature, freedom, justice, and man’s inhumanity to man, York knows that "the search for the treasure / was the real treasure." Walker eloquently conveys these moments of transformation in York’s life, and the result is a celebration of the beauty and wisdom of one man’s soul.