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Poems
by Frank X. Walker
From former poet laureate of Kentucky and founder of the Affrilachian Poets, a collection of historical poetry that gives voice to Black Civil War soldiers.
For decades, Frank X Walker has reclaimed essential American lives through his pathbreaking historical poetry: from Medgar Evers in Turn Me Loose, winner of the NAACP Award; to York, the enslaved explorer who joined the Lewis and Clark expedition, in Buffalo Dance, winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award. In this stirring new collection, he reimagines the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers―including his own ancestors―who enlisted in the Union Army in exchange for emancipation. Moving chronologically from antebellum Kentucky through Reconstruction, Walker braids the voices of the United States Colored Troops with their family members, as well as slaveowners and prominent historical figures―including Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and Margaret Garner―into a wide-ranging series of "persona poems" imbued with atmospheric imagery and brimming with indomitable spirit. Evoking the pride and perseverance of formerly enslaved General Charles Young, Walker hums: "I, am America's promise, my mother's song, / and the reason my father had every right to dream."
"Walker's excellent 12th collection (after Love House) captures the Black experience before and after emancipation in intimate and expansive poems.... Throughout, Walker draws on the emotional and psychological dimensions of poetry to transform slavery from historical fact to lived experience.... These vivid and evocative poems underscore the struggles Black people have faced while offering beautifully crafted, illuminating reflections on those experiences." ―Publishers Weekly
"In Frank X Walker's expert hands, history unfolds like a great epic, somehow sweeping and large while simultaneously tender, intimate in its looking. What an honor to be a poet, a reader, in a world made more vivid and possible by Frank X Walker's poems." ―Safia Elhillo, author of Girls That Never Die
"Frank X Walker's Load in Nine Times builds a powerful monument to those who served and were not recognized... . The language strikes the reader's senses like a flame to a fuse and Walker shows us just why the stories of these brave and enduring souls are still seared into the landscape. This is seismic and significant work." ―Oliver de la Paz, author of The Diaspora Sonnets
"As regressive politicians resurrect lost causes in the public sphere, Frank X Walker boldly brings the truth back to life in Black ink... . These evocative poems remind us that ... we still have every right to dream: a right all should have by birth alone but is enshrined by the blood shed to make it so." ―Cortney Lamar Charleston, author of Doppelgangbanger
This information about Load in Nine Times was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Frank X Walker is the author of twelve poetry collections. He was named the 2013 Kentucky poet laureate and is cofounder of the Affrilachian Poets. He resides in Lexington, Kentucky.
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